THE ART OF BARTRAM 109 



Seeing nature, then, as Bartram often did, from the point of 

 view of a painter, his style has the Hnear and colorful flow of 

 pictorial art. He has the ability to vivify a scene by means of 

 a stroke here and a touch there. His descriptions abound in 

 complete pictures — brilliant flashes, crisp miniatures, and, once 

 in a while, a sprawling canvas: 



The little gold-fish instantly fled from every side, darting through the 

 transparent waters like streams of lightning . . . (pp. 43-44) . 



The ultimate angle of the branchiostega [of the red-belly fish] ex- 

 tends backwards with a long spatula, ending with a round, or oval 

 particoloured spot, representing the eye in the long feathers of a pea- 

 cock's train, verged round with a thin flame-coloured membrane, and 

 appears like a brilliant ruby fixed on the side of the fish. . . . (p. 12). 



They [the Snake Birds] delight to sit in little peaceable communities, 

 on the dry limbs of trees, hanging over the still waters, with their 

 wings and tails expanded, I suppose to cool and air themselves, when 

 at the same time they behold their images in the watery mirror: at such 

 times, when we approach them, they drop off the limbs into the water 

 as if dead, and for a minute or two are not to be seen; when on a 

 sudden at a vast distance, their long slender head and neck only appear, 

 and have very much the appearance of a snake, and no other part of 

 them is to be seen when swimming in the water, except sometimes the 

 tip end of their tail. In the heat of the day they are seen in great 

 numbers, sailing very high in the air, over lakes and rivers (p. 133). 



The last passage is really a group of pictures, unmistakably 

 of the type one is accustomed to call Japanese and Chinese, and 

 those Bartram, by his own admission, saw " on the Chinese 

 screens and other India pictures." An even more representative 

 example of Bartram' s Chinese-screen pictorial ability is his 

 description of the wood pelican. He devotes two paragraphs 

 to this bird, and, among other things, paints this sketch: 



he stands alone on the topmost limb of tall dead Cypress trees, his neck 

 contracted or drawn in upon his shoulders, and beak resting like a long 

 scythe upon his breast: in this pensive posture and solitary situation, 

 they look extremely grave, sorrowful and melancholy, as if in the deepest 

 thought (p. 150).!^ 



But the vividness of his art is not confined to descriptions of 

 ^^ For the use that Wordsworth made of this passage see the next chapter. 



