154 
WILD WINGS 
my previous visit I had secured a photographic equipment 
of rapid lens and shutter suited for picturing birds in flight. 
The thoughts of the results obtainable with such an instru¬ 
ment by a practised hand upon these ledges crowded with 
sea-birds was enough to keep an enthusiast awake at night. 
Previously published pictures showed the birds mainly in 
repose. Now one might hope to portray them in all their 
wild activities. 
Hence it came about that a party of four reached the 
Magdalen Islands on the seventeenth of last June, and took 
up quarters upon Grosse Isle, to make some researches there 
among the northern birds, and to go to the Rock upon the 
first favorable opportunity. It was a promising beginning that 
within half an hour of landing I found a nest of the beautiful 
P'ox Sparrow containing four heavily marked eggs. Close 
upon this followed from day to day discoveries of nests of 
interesting shore-birds, ducks, and other birds of water and 
land. Yet Bird Rock was our Mecca. P'rom the great head¬ 
lands we could see it on clear days grimly towering far out 
to sea, and at night watch the mocking twinkle of its light 
— elusive and baffling indeed, for we were stranded. The 
large schooner we had hoped to engage had gone off on 
a protracted vo^^age, and there was no other. A small tug 
that had recently come to Grand Entry had broken down 
and was unseaworthy. 
Either we must give up our cherished project or go in 
some small open fishing-boat, if, indeed, we could find a man 
who dared attempt it. Fishermen shook their heads. The 
Rock lies out toward Newfoundland and Labrador twenty- 
two miles as the murre flies from Grosse Isle. There is only 
one possible landing-place under the tremendous cliffs, a pile 
of jagged rocks which have fallen down on one part of the 
west side, upon which, as against the cliffs themselves, the 
