10 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
speck, which our pilot assured us was the celebrated rock of 
our wishes. After a while I could distinctly see its top from 
the deck, and thought that it was still covered with snow sev- 
eral feet deep. As we approached it, I imagined that the at- 
mosphere around was filled with flakes, but on my turning to 
the pilot, who smiled at my simplicity, I was assured that noth- 
ing was in sight but the Gannets and their island home. I 
rubbed my eyes, took up my glass, and saw that the strange 
dimness of the air before us was caused by the innumerable 
birds, whose white bodies and black-tipped pinions produced a 
blended tint of light-grey. When we had advanced to within 
half a mile, this magnificent veil of floating Gannets was easily 
seen, now shooting upwards, as if intent on reaching the sky, 
then descending as if to join the feathered masses below, and 
again diverging toward either side and sweeping over the sur- 
face of the ocean. The Ripley now partially furled her sails, 
and lay to, when all on board were eager to scale the abrupt 
side of the mountain isle, and satisfy their curiosity.” 
Audubon’s accounts of the birds are copious, inter- 
esting and generally accurate, considering the time and 
circumstances in which they were produced. When at 
his best, his pictures were marvels of fidelity and close 
observation, and in some of his studies of mammals, like 
that of the raccoon (see p. 182), in which seemingly 
every hair is carefully rendered, we are reminded of 
the work of the old Dutch masters and of Albrecht 
Diirer; notwithstanding such attention to microscopic 
detail, there is no flatness, but the values of light and 
shade are perfectly rendered. In his historical survey 
of American ornithology, Elliott Coues was fully justi- 
fied in designating the years 1824-1853 as representing 
the “Audubonian Epoch,” and the time from 1834 to its 
close as the “Audubonian Period.” “The splendid 
? Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. iv, p. 222. 
