after him; and when we got on deck he looked towards the northeast, and
if ever I saw a chap wonder-struck, he was. Right ahead of us was a
bold, rocky island, with what looked like a great snow bank on its
southern slope; while the air was full overhead, and all about, of what
seemed a heavy fall of snow. The day was blazing hot, and there was n't
a cloud to be seen.

"'What in the world, Skipper, does this mean?' says he. 'We're sailing
right into a snow-storm in dog-days and in a clear sky.'

"By this time we had got near enough to hear a great rushing noise in
the air, every moment growing louder and louder.

"'It's only a storm of gannets,' says I.

"'Sure enough!' says he; 'but I wouldn't have believed it possible.'

"When we got fairly off against the island I fired a gun at it: and such
a fluttering and screaming you can't imagine. The great snow-banks
shook, trembled, loosened, and became all alive, whirling away into the
air like drifts in a nor'wester. Millions of birds went up, wheeling
and zigzagging about, their white bodies and blacktipped wings crossing
and recrossing and mixing together into a thick grayish-white haze above
us.

"'You're right, Skipper,' says Wilson to me;

Nature is better than books.'

"And from that time he was on deck as much as his health would allow of,