And the sailor was about to descend, when he was preceded by the nimble Jup, who slid down to the sand.
[JUP SITTING FOR HIS PORTRAIT]
![[JUP SITTING FOR HIS PORTRAIT]](#7468522441993521294_aban112.jpg.id-1987568094983004790.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}
But the orang had not touched the ground, when the snowy sheet arose and dispersed in the air in such innumerable flakes that the light of the sun was obscured for some minutes.
"Birds!" cried Herbert.
They were indeed swarms of sea-birds, with dazzling white plumage. They had perched by thousands on the islet and on the shore, and they disappeared in the distance, leaving the colonists amazed as if they had been present at some transformation scene, in which summer succeeded winter at the touch of a fairy's wand. Unfortunately the change had been so sudden that neither the reporter nor the lad had been able to bring down one of these birds, of which they could not recognise the species.
A few days after came the 26th of March, the day on which, two years before, the castaways from the air had been thrown upon Lincoln Island.
![[THE SNOWY SHEET AROSE AND DISPERSED IN THE AIR]](#7468522441993521294_aban113.jpg.id-1390792488936848747.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}