GANNETS ON THE COAST OF CANADA 301 



rock, were covered with the nests of the Gannet at the time 

 of my visit. On the ledges the nests were arranged in single 

 lines nearly or quite touching one another ; on the summit, 

 at regular distances one from the other of about three feet. 

 Those on the ledges were built entirely of sea-weed and other 

 floating substances ; on the summit of the rock they were 

 raised on cones, formed of earth or small stones, about 

 ten inches in height, and eighteen in diameter, when 

 first constructed, presenting at a short distance, the 

 appearance of a well hilled potato field. I saw no nests 

 built of Zostera, or grass, or sods ; the materials were 

 almost entirely Fuci, though anything available was 

 probably used ; in one case the whole nest was composed 

 of straw, and in another the greater part of Manilla 

 rope-yarn." In 1861 Bird Rock was visited by Professor 

 Verrill. 



We learn that in 1869 a lighthouse was erected on the 

 flat summit of the large Bird Rock, and that the birds 

 decreased in consequence. This was especially so on the 

 table top of the rock, where the Gannets, which Bryant had 

 estimated at 100,000 in 1860, soon began to disappear. 

 "Hence," writes Mr. Chapman, "when Mr. C. J. Maynard 

 visited the Rock in 1872, he found that the colony of 

 Gannets on its summit contained only five thousand birds, 

 which, nine years later, Mr. WiUiam Brewster reports had 



