THE IPSWICH SPARROW. 5 



When everything is taken into consideration, I am convinced that the 

 Fates were unusually propitious, and enabled me to accomplish within a 

 few weeks what might easily have taken as many months. No steamer 

 visited the island for two months after I left it, and this impossibility of 

 escape from a place that has absolutely no other means of communication 

 with the outer world (not even a cable) is a serious bar to making a 

 journey that lands the rash naturalist on a veritable terra incognita. 



In order that we may better understand the conditions under which the 

 birds are living there today, it will be interesting for us to glance at the 

 histor}^ of this isolated spot, already the theme of many a pen, and impor- 

 tant for us to dwell at some length upon the natural history, about which 

 little has been written. 



History of Sable Island. 



Whether the Dane, Biorn Heriulfsen, really spied the island, as he is 

 said to have done, in the year 986 A. d. or not, is a matter not susceptible 

 of proof,^ but that it was known to the navigators ot the sixteenth 

 century is shown by its appearance on early charts." It is apparently 

 indicated as ' samta cruz ' on a chart of 1505 by Pedro Reinel, as ' st 

 cruz' on one of 1544 by Sebastian Cabot, and as ' Isola d'ella Rena ' 

 (Sandy Island) on one of about 1550 by the Italian, Gastaldi ; while it 

 appears on various maps of later date under the names of ' isle de sable,' 

 'I. Sable,' etc., all ringing changes on the French word sable, meaning 

 ' sand,' the adjacent mainland being in those times under French rule, and 

 known as Acadie. The accuracy of some of the statements made by early 

 writers regarding the island, is questionable; and whether the Frenchman, 

 Baron de Lery, visited it and left beiiind him cattle and swine in the 3'ear 

 15 18, is very doubtful ; but that the Portuguese stocked it with these animals 

 about the middle of the sixteenth century seems to be an established fact. 



In 1583 occurred the first of a long series of disasters on its dangerous 

 bars. The Admiral, an armed vessel in the service of Her Majesty, Qiieen 

 Elizabeth, was wrecked here, and nearly one hundred lives were lost. T'he 

 expedition, under command of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother to Sir 

 Walter Raleigh, consisted of five ships, and was proceeding from New- 

 foundland, which island had just been taken possession of in the name 

 of the Queen. 



' J. M. Oxley, ' Historic Aspects of Sable Island.' IVIag. Amer. Hist., XV, Felj. 18S6, 163. 



'Facsimiles of many of them may be found in ' Cartier to Frontenac,' by Justin Winsor, 1S94, 

 pp. 6, 53, etc. 



