Part 8

The farther we advanced the less shelter had we from the land, and finally, passing the northwest end of the island, we were at the mercy of the full force of a long rolling sea, which made it impossible to stand, or even sit, without clinging to one’s surroundings. At this point, I believe, the promise of the most wonderful sight in the bird world would not have induced me to continue on our course another minute; but fortunately no promise was required, the sight itself existed, and under its inspiration I battled with weak nature for the next half hour with a courage born of enthusiasm and a desire to picture the wonders of the scene before me.

[Illustration: 75. The Gannet cliffs of Bonaventure.]

On the ledges of the red sandstone cliffs, which rose sheer three hundred feet above the waves at their base, was row after row of snow-white Gannets on their nests.^{75} Their number was incredible, and as we coasted slowly onward, the red walls above us were streaked with white as far as one could see in either direction, and the hoarse cries of the birds rose in chorus above the sound of the beating waves. It was a wild picture, which the majesty of the cliffs and the grandeur of the sea rendered exceedingly impressive.

How I longed for the internal composure of my boatmen! One moment I bowed to the waves, the next propped myself against the mast and, held by the captain, attempted to use the twin-lens camera. Water, cliff, and sky danced across the ground glass in bewildering succession, as, like a wing-shot, I squeezed my pneumatic bulb and snapped at the jumping sky line.

One or two exposures were followed by collapse, and in time by partial recuperation, which permitted fresh efforts. In the picture presented the cliff is well shown, but the birds are not so numerous as in others less successful photographically. And during this time how fared my assistant? Charity forbids a reply. I will only say that, in response to a hail from a passing fisherman, our captain shouted, “_Son malade!_”

The supply of 5 × 7 plates exhausted, we came about, and sailing before the wind quickly reached the leeward side of the island, where, under the reviving influence of calmer water, we determined to revisit the Gannets, this time, however, by land.

Disembarking at the fishing village, which is situated on the west side of Bonaventure, we were soon in the spruce and balsam forests, which occupy all but the borders of the island, here about a mile and a half in width. The change from the turmoil and vastness of the sea to the quiet and seclusion of the forest made the previous hour’s experience seem distant and unreal. The wind which had roared through our rigging now breathed peacefully through the tree tops; the heaving, frothy sea was replaced by stable earth, wondrously carpeted with snow-white cornel and dainty twin-flowers;^{76} instead of the harsh cries of the Gannets, we heard the Ave Maria of the White-throated Sparrow. Rarely have the woods seemed so beautiful. Approaching the eastern cliffs, the trees became dwarfed and singularly malformed by the winds. Finally they disappeared altogether, and were succeeded by fields blue with iris. Never have I seen this plant so abundant. There were acres of flowers reaching to the very edge of the cliffs, where, with only a change in the tint, the blue of the iris faded into the blue of the sea.

[Illustration: 76. Cornel or bunchberry.]

We were now nearing the Gannets; desiring to secure a picture of a fully occupied ledge, I urged due caution, and advanced quietly to the edge of the cliff. The point was well chosen—almost directly beneath us, and about halfway down to the sea, there being a broad, rocky shelf so thickly dotted with nesting Gannets that every bird in the group was within reach of his immediately surrounding fellows.^{77} It was an astonishing picture of bird life, but only a fragment of what we had beheld from the sea. Under the circumstances, however, this fragment brought more satisfaction than had been before received from the entire Gannet colony.

The 4 × 5 “Premo” was now erected, care being taken to make no move which would alarm the birds, and several exposures were made at leisure. Then changing the lens to an old “Henry Clay,” and attaching several elastics to the shutter, I prepared to make a flight picture of the birds as, at the report of my gun, they left their nests. All ready, I took firm hold of the bulb and gave the word to the captain to fire.

The result may fairly be called a failure. As far as we could determine, the birds gave no evidence of hearing the shot or the others which followed, and our best efforts did not succeed in making a single Gannet leave its nest. Like Darwin’s Hawk and Moseley’s Penguins, these birds seemed happily ignorant of man and his ways. One could doubtless descend to their ledge without causing them to leave it.

[Illustration: 77. A ledge of nesting Gannets. About four hundred birds are shown in this picture.]

It is conceivable that the wearing of Gannets’ heads, or feet, or wings may some day become fashionable, but unless the demand be urgent and the price sufficient to tempt men to risk their lives, the Gannets will long continue to nest on the cliffs of Bonaventure.

THE MAGDALENS

From Percé to the Magdalens by sea is about a hundred and twenty miles, but lacking a proper vessel we were forced to return to Dalhousie and there take the International Railroad to Pictou, where a weekly steamer leaves for Prince Edward Island and the “Madalenes,” as the natives call them.

The journey is possessed of both present and historic interest, and the hospitality for which the residents of Pictou are noted assures one of a pleasant stay in their picturesque little town. Here I met a veteran ornithologist—James McKinlay—who, although over threescore and ten and isolated from others of kindred tastes, still possesses the enthusiasm of the genuine naturalist. His collection, the greater part of which he has presented to the Pictou Academy, contains, among other birds, a Brown Pelican, a Corncrake, and a Chuck-will’s-widow—all shot in the vicinity.

The Magdalen steamer is neither a yacht nor an ocean greyhound, but answers very well for the short voyage of a hundred and fifty miles across the gulf. Pictou was left at noon, and the following morning we awakened to find the steamer at anchor off an island with red sandstone cliffs, and green fields rising gently into hills clad with stunted spruce forests. This was at the southern end of the long sand bar which joins these so-called islands; and our destination, Grand Entry, near the northern end of the chain, was reached late in the afternoon.

At this point we embarked in a small sailboat, and in a driving rainstorm flew before the wind across a bay two miles in width, and up an arm a mile or so in length, to the settlement of Grosse Isle, on the island of the same name. The tide was out; Black-backed Gulls were feeding on the flats, and Gannets fishing in the deeper water; Guillemots rose before the boat; a seal showed itself for a moment and disappeared—moving figures in a picture which impressed itself very vividly on my memory. A landing was made with difficulty, and a walk of nearly a mile through the scrubby spruces brought us to the home of the fisher folk, who had agreed to take us in.

If Percé is isolated, Grosse Isle is in another sphere. Even the weekly steamer which plies between Pictou and the Magdalens from May to November comes no nearer than Grand Entry, and its arrival seemed a rather vague incident, made real only by the appearance of mail.

The lobster season had just closed, the “pots” were piled in heaps on the beaches, and mackerel fishing was now the presumable industry of the male population of Grosse Isle. But few fish were running, and each day boat after boat of glum-looking men came in from the sea with often only a few cod to show for their labor. This, however, was midsummer, and the Grosse Isle “season” was in full swing. There was a school picnic one day; on another, service was held in the little white church on the hillside; but, as I considered the deathlike quiet which, as a rule, reigned in the village, I wondered what life must be there in winter. Then the entire Magdalen group is frozen in a sea of ice, which renders communication with the mainland (except by cable, generally out of repair) impossible. When the ice breaks in the spring, seals appear and furnish a hazardous occupation to those who are venturesome enough to go in pursuit of them—a form of sport which I imagine is eagerly welcomed after the lethargy of winter. With us the Magdalens were only a stepping-stone to Bird Rock, but while preparing for the continuation of our journey to that point we took some note of our surroundings.

[Illustration: 78. Nest and eggs of Fox Sparrow.]

The Magdalens have an interesting avifauna, but it was now the latter half of July and the song season of most species was over. Fox Sparrows, however, were still singing, and their clear, ringing whistle came from the spruces all about. The fogs, so characteristic of the region, seemed in no way to dampen their spirits, and when the gray mists closed in thick about us their notes rang out as cheerily as though the sun shone from a blue sky.

My short excursions, however, were largely made along the beaches in search of some sea waif, and for the shore birds that would soon migrate through these islands in large numbers, or to the cliffs where the Guillemots were nesting. The latter were comparative strangers to me, and I had not become accustomed to the plump, black, white-winged, little birds that sat so lightly on the water. They nest in scattered pairs, in crevices, in the face of the cliffs, where my guide, Mr. Shelbourne, a resident collector, was particularly apt at discovering them.

Grosse Isle is not beyond the range of the nestrobbing small boy, and only the few Guillemots that had contrived to escape him now had young. They were feeding them on sand eels, and with bills full of their shining prey made frequent visits to their nests. The young varied in development from those as yet covered only with the scanty natal down to others half grown and with the black and white second plumage appearing beneath. They were active enough to test the temper of the most patient bird photographer, and the accompanying picture was secured only after many trials.^{79}

[Illustration: 79. Young Guillemots.]

In the meantime we were endeavoring to make some arrangements for our voyage to the Rock, which on clear days could be seen from the tops of the higher hills—a hazy dot in the sea. Imagination peopled the view with Cartier, Audubon, and his successors, and I could scarcely believe that the scene of the wonders they had described was actually on my horizon. But, although only twenty miles away, Bird Rock now seemed more distant than before we had taken the first step of our journey. This in a measure is due to the uncertainty of gulf weather, the strong tides, the sudden and severe squalls, the prevalence of fogs, and the surprising rapidity with which the latter change a sunlit horizon to closely crowding gray walls—all of which make navigation in these waters more than usually dangerous. Furthermore, it is to be remembered that Bird Rock is not a port in which one could seek safety from a storm, but a spot to be approached only in the calmest weather. One might therefore start for the Rock under the most favorable conditions, be caught in a squall and, as a result, find one’s self at sea with the recently desired haven changed to an element of danger.

With the Rock glimmering in the sunlight and apparently almost within reach, it was not easy to believe tales of disaster which had befallen those who in small boats had attempted to reach it, and I was more impressed with its inaccessibility by the fact that only one of the many fishermen with whom I talked, had ever landed on this inhospitable resort of sea birds.

This man proved a friend in need—one Captain Hubbard Taker, of the thirty-ton schooner Sea Gem. I commend him to every visitor to the Magdalens as a man and a sailor. It was when the difficulties of reaching the Rock by small boat appeared insurmountable that Captain Taker returned from a fishing trip to the Labrador coast. He proved to be one of those rare but exceedingly satisfactory individuals with whom anything is possible, or at least who believes it is until the contrary is shown. Could he take us to Bird Rock? “Why, of course; and whenever you are ready.” So without delay we boarded the Sea Gem.

BIRD ROCK

If as a result of a conference between the birds and the Audubon Society a home were to be selected which should prove a secure retreat for certain of the feathered kind, I imagine that Bird Rock, in its primal condition, would have admirably filled the requirements set forth by both conferees.

With precipitous, rocky walls weathered into innumerable ledges, shelves, and crevices—all fit nesting sites—one might think of it as a colossal lodging house for the countless sea-bird tenants who find here not only a suitable place for the reproduction of their young, but in the surrounding waters an abundant and unfailing supply of food. Add to these conditions the Rock’s isolation and inaccessibility, its shoreless outline, and the difficulty with which it may be ascended, and we have indeed an ideal refuge for sea fowl, one in which, unless they were subjected to special persecution, they might have continued to exist for centuries, had not the transforming influences of civilization reached even to this isle of the sea.

Bird Rock is about fifty miles northwest of Cape Breton, the nearest mainland, and twelve east of Bryon Island, its next neighbor in the Magdalen group, to which it belongs. It is three hundred and fifty yards long, from fifty to one hundred and forty yards wide, and rises abruptly from the sea to a height of from eighty to one hundred and forty feet. Its outline, the nature of its base, sides, and summit are well indicated by the accompanying pictures.

[Illustration: 80. Bird Rock from the southwest; distant about one half a mile.]

Three quarters of a mile northeast of Bird Rock, or Great Bird, as it is more specifically called, lies Little Bird, a red sandstone rock which at high tide, or from a distance, appears as two. The shallow water between Great and Little Birds suggests the possibility of a past connection and the probability that in some future geological age the waves will have completed their work of destruction, when both islands will have disappeared.

The history of these bird-inhabited islands is interesting, and gives us some information of the changes which man has wrought in their bird life. It begins with the account given by Jacques Cartier of his voyage to Canada in 1534. Of the Bird Rocks he wrote: “We came to three islands, two of which are as steep and upright as any wall, so that it was not possible to climb them, and between them is a little rock. These islands were as full of birds as any meadow is of grass, which there do make their nests, and in the greatest of them there was a great and infinite number of those that we called Margaulx, that are white and bigger than any geese, which were severed in one part. In the other were only Godetz, but toward the shore there were of those Godetz and great Apponatz, like to those of that island that we above have mentioned. We went down to the lowest part of the least island, where we killed above a thousand of those Godetz and Apponatz. We put into our boats as many as we pleased, for in less than one hour we might have filled thirty such boats of them. We named them the islands of the Margaulx.”

Concerning this quotation Mr. F. A. Lucas remarks (The Auk, v, 1888, page 129): “While this description, as well as the sentences which immediately precede it, contains some statements that apparently are at variance with existing facts, there is nevertheless good reason to believe that Cartier here refers to the Bird Rocks in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The birds called Margaulx, which bite even as dogs, were Gannets, whose descendants, in spite of centuries of persecution, are to be found to-day nesting where their ancestors did before them.

“That Cartier’s description does not accord with their present appearance is not to be wondered at. The material of which they are composed is of a soft, decomposing, red sandstone that succumbs so easily to the incessant attacks of the sea that Dr. Bryant’s description of them in 1860 does not hold good to-day. If, then, the Bird Rocks have undergone visible changes in twenty-five years, it is easy to imagine how great alterations the islets may have undergone during three and a quarter centuries.”

Examination of the narratives left by other early voyagers in this region would yield further information concerning the Rocks and the destruction of its inhabitants; but passing to records of greater ornithological value, we find that Audubon, whose energy in exploration no ornithologist has ever surpassed, was the first naturalist beholding Bird Rock to leave us a description of its wonders. It was during his cruise to Labrador in the schooner Ripley that he wrote in his journal, under date of June 14, 1833, the following graphic account of the day’s experiences:

[Illustration: 81. North side of the Rock, west of the crane.]

“About ten a speck rose on the horizon, which I was told was the Rock. We sailed well, the breeze increased fast, and we neared this object apace. At eleven I could distinguish its top plainly from the deck, and thought it covered with snow to the depth of several feet; this appearance existed on every portion of the flat, projecting shelves. Godwin said, with the coolness of a man who had visited this Rock for ten successive seasons, that what we saw was not snow, but Gannets. I rubbed my eyes, took my spyglass, and in an instant the strangest picture stood before me. They were birds we saw—a mass of birds of such a size as I never before cast my eyes on. The whole of my party stood astounded and amazed, and all came to the conclusion that such a sight was of itself sufficient to invite any one to come across the gulf to view it at this season. The nearer we approached the greater our surprise at the enormous number of these birds, all calmly seated on their eggs or newly hatched brood, their heads all turned to windward and toward us. The air above for a hundred yards, and for some distance around the whole Rock, was filled with Gannets on the wing, which, from our position, made it appear as if a heavy fall of snow was directly above us.” (Audubon and his Journals, i, p. 360.)

From his pilot, Godwin, Audubon secured some information concerning the Gannets that then nested on the top of the Rock. He writes: “The whole surface is perfectly covered with nests, placed about two feet apart, in such regular order that you may look through the lines as you would look through those of a planted patch of sweet potatoes or cabbages. The fishermen who kill these birds to get their flesh for codfish bait ascend in parties of six or eight, armed with clubs; sometimes, indeed, the party comprises the crews of several vessels. As they reach the top, the birds, alarmed, rise with a noise like thunder, and fly off in such a hurried, fearful confusion as to throw each other down, often falling on each other until there is a bank of them many feet high. The men strike them down and kill them until fatigued or satisfied. Five hundred and forty have been thus murdered in one hour by six men. The birds are skinned with little care, and the flesh cut off in chunks; it will keep fresh about a fortnight. So great is the destruction of these birds annually that their flesh supplies the bait for upward of forty fishing boats which lie close to Bryon Island, each summer.”

This slaughter was evidently attended by some danger, for not only did the sitting birds bite viciously, but old fishermen in the Magdalens state that if the invader of the Gannets’ domain on the summit of the Rock should have happened to be caught in a rush of stampeded birds, he could with difficulty have avoided being carried off the edge of the cliff.

In concluding his description of the Rock, Audubon says: “No man who has not seen what we have this day can form the least idea of the impression the sight made on our minds.” One need not be a naturalist, therefore, to realize the depth of his disappointment when the pilot told him that the wind was too high to permit them to land on the Rock. However, they did not leave without at least making an attempt. A boat was launched, manned by the pilot, two sailors, Audubon’s son John, and Tom Lincoln, for whom Lincoln’s Finch, discovered subsequently in Labrador, was named; but after an hour’s absence they returned without having made a landing, and the increasing force of the wind compelled them to continue their voyage to the northward.

Apparently the first naturalist to set foot on Bird Rock was Dr. Henry Bryant, of Boston, who landed there June 23, 1860. This was before the days of the lighthouse, and Dr. Bryant reached the top of the Rock only after a climb which he characterizes as both “difficult and dangerous.” In addition to the Gannets, which he found resting on the ledges on the face of the Rock, he found these birds nesting over the entire northerly half of the summit, and after measuring the surface occupied by them, he estimated that this one colony alone contained no less than one hundred thousand birds, while the number living on the sides of the Rock and Little Bird he placed at fifty thousand.

The position of the Rock, at the gateway to Canadian ports, makes it particularly dangerous to vessels plying in these waters, and in 1869 a lighthouse was erected on its summit. While constructing the light keeper’s dwelling and storehouses, the Government built two cranes—one on the northerly, the other on the southerly side of the Rock—for use in hoisting supplies. There are also now three other places where by means of ladders and ropes one may ascend. The top of the Rock was thus made more accessible, and the birds were consequently less protected from the attacks of fishermen. It is said, also, that the light keepers did not appreciate the companionship of the Gannets, and made special efforts to drive the birds from the nesting site which they so long had held undisturbed.

[Illustration: 82. A corner of the Rock.]