6 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



In 1598 forty convicts were left on the island by tlie Marquis de la 

 Roclie, who intended to transfer them to the mainland as soon as he had 

 selected a site for a new colon}'. A storm, however, presently arose that 

 drove him eastward, and he finally returned to France where he is said to 

 have been imprisoned. The convicts were not rescued for five or six years, 

 wlien all save a dozen had perished, the survivors subsisting on cattle, seals 

 and berries, and clothing themselves with skins and furs. During the first 

 half of the seventeentli century the island was visited by English and 

 French fishermen and hunters in pursuit of the seals, walruses and foxes that 

 then abounded, and by others who hunted the cattle for their hides. In 

 1633 John Rose of Boston, who was wrecked upon the island, reported 

 having seen " more than eight hundred head of wild cattle and a great 

 many foxes many of which were black." After he had effected his escape 

 in a boat built from the wreckage of his vessel, he returned again with 

 seventeen Acadians, who so slaughtered the cattle that few remained when, 

 some years later, a company arrived from Boston having the same end in 

 view. Apparently the cattle, foxes, and walruses were exterminated at 

 about this time, for we find little or no reference to them daring the next 

 hundred years. 



About 1738 Rev. Andrew Le Mercier, also of Boston, restocked the 

 island with some domestic animals, expecting to settle there himself. The 

 wild ponies that to the present day are found in ' gangs ' all over the island 

 are said to be descendants of this stock, although it is thought by some 

 that they originally came from the wreck of a Spanish vessel.' Since 

 Le Mercier's time the cattle have been at least semi-domesticated, for the 

 island became during the latter half of the eighteenth century a place of 

 resort, not only of honest fishermen, but of pirates and wreckers, attracted 

 no doubt by the constantly increasing number of vessels that were cast 

 away upon it. Gruesome tales are told of the robbery and murder of the 

 unfortunate people who escaped the sea only to fall into the hands of these 

 miscreants, and blood-curdling ghost-stories have grown out of this dark 

 period of the island's history. In order to protect life and property, the 

 Government of Nova Scotia in the autumn of iSoi established on Sable 

 Island the first relief or humane establishment, that has developed into the 

 well-equipped life-saving service there today. Since 1801 accurate records 

 of the havoc wrought by storms in the physical aspect of the island, and of 

 the many wrecks that have occurred on its outlying bars, have been kept 

 by the various superintendents. Up to 1882, no less than one hundred and 



'For an account of them see J. B. Gilpin ' On introduced species of Nova Scotiri,' Trans. N. S. 

 Inst. Nat. Sci., Vol. I (printed II), pt. i, 1S64, pp. Co-CS. 



