xxxviii. THE GANNET 



visiting tliis great resort of Gannets to procure their flesh 

 for bait, armed with short clubs for the purpose of killing 

 them. The frightened birds, prevented from rising into 

 the air bj^ their long wings, impeded each other's progress, 

 by which numbers were overtaken and forced to the ground, 

 the men beating and killing old and young with their clubs 

 until too fatigued to go on any longer. Audubon's pilot, 

 who had been to the Gannet Rock ten seasons in succession, 

 had seen six men destroy five hundred and forty Gannets 

 in about an hour by clubbing them, after which the party 

 rested awhile. So great was the massacre of Gannets 

 which went on upon this island of destruction, that their 

 flesh supplied upwards of forty boats, wliich annually came 

 to Brion Island for the cod-fishing, Avith bait. For these 

 facts see Audubon's " Journals " published by his daughter 

 and Elhott Coues in 1898, and the " Ornithological Bio- 

 graphy " (Vol. IV., p. 224). Other species of birds were 

 doubtless killed as well, but the Gannets which nested on 

 the flat upper surface of the Bird-Rocks were the easiest 

 to capture, next to the flightless Gare-FoAvl which had 

 supplied Hakluyt's voyagers in the sixteenth century, but 

 were now become rare. Gannets also bred on Funk 

 Island, which is further north, and here, says George 

 Cartwright, " It has been customary of late years for several 

 crews of men to live all summer on that island, for the sole 

 purpose of killing birds for their feathers ; the destruction 

 Avhich the}'^ have made is incredible." (" . . . The Coast 

 of Labrador," 1785, III., p. 55). But here the Great Auk 

 was the chief sufferer. In 1874, Funk Island was visited 

 by Professor John Mihie, and in July, 1887, by Mr. F. A. 



