GOVERNMENT PROTECTION OF BIRDS 307 
BIRD RESERVATIONS IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE 
(PLATES XX AND XXI1) 
In the Gulf of St. Lawrence lie some of the most famous 
haunts of sea-fowl in the world. Ever since Jacques Car- 
tier reached the Bird Rocks, or “‘Isles de Margaulx,” as he 
called them, ‘“‘Margaulx”’ being the name the fishermen of 
northern France gave to the gannet, on the 21st of May, 
1534, up to the present time, the Bird Rocks, Bonaventure 
Island, and Percé Rock have been known to naturalists and 
bird lovers as great breeding-places for gannets, kittiwakes, 
guillemots or murres of several species, razorbills, puffins, 
gulls, petrels, and other sea-birds. At the present time the 
Bird Rocks and Bonaventure Island constitute the chief 
breeding-places in the western hemisphere of the gannet, 
one of the most magnificent sea-birds in the world. 
During recent years considerable destruction of these 
birds and their eggs by fishermen and tourists has taken 
place, and many leading naturalists and ornithologists have 
urged the protection of the birds on these rocks by the Do- 
minion Government and the government of the province 
of Quebec. In 1915 the Commission of Conservation took 
up the question of establishing these rocks as bird sanctu- 
aries, and, as a result of its exertions, in which other organi- 
zations and individuals have co-operated, the Bird Rocks, 
Bonaventure Island, and Percé Rock were, in the spring of 
1919, created as national and provincial bird reservations 
by concurrent legislative action on the part of the govern- 
ment of the Province of Quebec and of the Dominion 
Government. 
The Bird Rocks. These rocks, consisting of the Great 
Bird Rock, on which a lighthouse has been erected, and the 
two Lesser Bird Rocks, form part of the Magdalen Islands 
group, the Great Bird Rock being about twenty miles north 
of the Magdalen Islands proper. Great Bird Rock is about 
seven acres in extent. The top of the rock, which is in- 
