ee | Townsend, In Audubon’s Labrador. 14] 
Among the birds that flew away, I saw only one Common Cormo- 
rant. Fishing schooners for years have been in the habit of sailing 
close to the cliffs and the men have discharged their guns at the 
poor birds for the brutal pleasure of seeing them fly off in terror or 
fall wounded into the sea. 
At Gull Island, off the Cape, we found an even larger nesting 
colony of double crested Cormorants than at Outer Island and 
Murres were also abundant. That afternoon we sailed into the 
harbor of Wapitagun, so graphically described by Audubon in his 
history of the Razor-billed Auk. Wapitigun is an appropriate 
name for this region, as it is the Montagnais for Cormorant. On 
shore, which is entirely destitute of human habitation, I found a 
pair of Red-throated Loons in one of the lakelets,— about fifty 
yards long,— of the barren. They rose into the air at my ap- 
proach and deserted their son and heir, who, in a coat of light 
brown down was vigorously swimming about his native pool. Mr. 
W. L. McAtee! has recently called attention to this ability of the 
Red-throated Loon to spring into the air from calm water, an 
accomplishment that is necessitated by this habit of nesting on the 
edges of small pools. A Loon would not have been able to leave 
this small pool on the wing unless a strong breeze had been 
blowing. 
I also found a Least Sandpiper that rose in the air like a mechani- 
eal toy, sailed in irregular circles twenty to fifty yards above the 
bog, with wings curved down and back, and emitted at frequent 
intervals a short trill almost as finely drawn as that of a cricket. 
The bird was in the air for five minutes by the watch and continued 
to trill after he had reached the ground. Here he was at once 
obliterated, for his streaked brown back was next to invisible in the 
bog. He continued trilling as long as I was within ear-shot and 
even followed me repeating his simple nuptial song. Horned Larks 
and Pipits were common and the water ways abounded in Razor- 
billed Auks and Black Guillemots. 
The next day, we reached the little harbor of Seal-Net Point, also 
known as Point au Maurier. Near here I was so fortunate as to 
find a breeding colony of Ring-billed Gulls, some five hundred in 
1 Auk, 1916, XXXIII, p. 75. 
