Audubon and His Journals, Volume 1Audubon, John James
History
Audubon and His Journals, Volume 1
Audubon, John James
Audubon, John James, 1785-1851 -- Diaries; Birds -- North America; Naturalists -- United States -- Diaries
_June 7._ The whole morning was spent trying to enter Little River,
but in vain; the men were unable to tow us in. We landed for a few
minutes, and shot a Hermit Thrush, but the appearance of a breeze
brought us back, and we attempted to put to sea. Our position now
became rather dangerous, as we were drawn by the current nearly upon
the rocks; but the wind rose at last, and we cleared for sea. At three
o'clock it became suddenly so foggy that we could not see the
bowsprit. The night was spent in direful apprehensions of ill luck; at
midnight a smart squall decided in our favor, and when day broke on
the morning of June 8 the wind was from the northeast, blowing fresh,
and we were dancing on the waters, all shockingly sea-sick, crossing
that worst of all dreadful bays, the Bay of Fundy. We passed between
the Seal Islands and the Mud Islands; in the latter _Procellaria
wilsonii_, the Stormy Petrel, breeds abundantly; their nests are dug
out of the sand in an oblique direction to the depth of two, or two
and a half feet. At the bottom of these holes, and on the sand, the
birds deposit their pure white eggs. The holes are perforated, not in
the banks like the Bank Swallow, but are like rat holes over the whole
of the islands. On Seal Islands _Larus argentatus_, the Herring Gull,
breeds as abundantly as on Grand Menan, but altogether _on trees_. As
we passed Cape Sable, so called on account of its being truly a
sand-point of some caved-in elevation, we saw a wrecked ship with many
small crafts about it. I saw there _Uria troile_, the Foolish
Guillemot, and some Gannets. The sea was dreadful, and scarcely one of
us was able to eat or drink this day. We came up with the schooner
"Caledonia," from Boston for Labrador; her captain wished to keep in
our company, and we were pretty much together all night and also on
Sunday.
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