THE AUK : 



A Q_UARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



VOL. V. April, 1888. No. 2. 



THE BIRD ROCKS OF THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE 



IN 1SS7. 



BY FREDERIC A, LUCAS. 



Three hundred and thirty-two years ago Jacques Cartier, voy- 

 aguig in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, wrote as follows: "We came 

 to three islands, two of which are as steep and upright as any 

 wall, so that it was not possible to climb them, and between 

 them there is a little rock. These islands were as full of birds 

 as any meadow is of grass, which there do make their nests, and 

 in the greatest of them there was a great and infinite number of 

 those that w^e call Margaulx, that are white and bigger than any 

 geese, which were sevei-ed in one part. In the other were only 

 Godetz, but toward the shore there were of those Godetz and 

 great Apponatz, like to those of that island that we above have 

 mentioned ; we went down to the lowest part of the least island, 

 where we killed above a thousand of those Godetz and Appon- 

 atz. We put into our boats so many of them as we pleased, for 

 in less than one hour we might have filled thirty such boats of 

 them. We named them the Islands of Margaulx." 



While this description, as well as the sentences which immedi- 

 ately precede it, contains some statements that apparently are at 

 variance with existing facts, there is nevertheless good reason to 

 believe that Cartier here refers to the Bird Rocks in the Gulf of 



