GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 29? 



a voyage to those regions in 1583,* we find enumerated 

 "A great white foule called of some a Gaunt " — doubtless 

 the Gannet, but there is nothing about their nesting. 



Modern History. The Bird Rocks. — Coming now to 

 modern times, the celebrated Bird Rocks are the first 

 settlement to be considered. Mr. F. M. Chapman, in a very 

 interesting narrative of his visit there, terms the Great Bird 

 Rock, which is 105 feet high, and which Cartier called 

 the Island of Margaulx, " an ideal refuge for sea-fowl." 

 In spite of the great diminution which history shows to have 

 taken place in its feathered population, it is difficult, observes 

 Mr. Chapman, for a casual observer to believe that it could 

 ever have been more densely inhabited than it is now.f 

 That is with the exception of the upper surface, where the 

 hghthouse buildings are, and where no Gannets breed any 

 longer. Of recent years Bird Rock has been visited by several 

 good observers, one of whom, Mr. H. K. Job, author of 

 " Wild Wings," was there in June, 1904, and it is satisfactory 

 to learn that owing to a partial prohibition of shooting, most 

 of the birds showed a decided increase since his previous 

 visit to Bird Rock in 1900 — an increase also noticed by Mr. 

 A. C. Bent. It is to be hoped that for both the Canadian 

 breeding-places — Bird Rock and Bonaventure — we may 



* See " Hakluj't," iii., p. 195, or in ]\Iaclehose's edition, viii., p. 59. 

 t " Bird Studies with a Camera " (1900), jjp. 152, 161. 



