I "20 Lucas on the Bird Rocks of the Gulf of St. La-ivrencc. [April 



St. Lawrence.* The birds called Margaulx, "which bite even 

 as dogs," were Gannets whose descendants, in spite of centuries 

 of persecution, are to be found to-day, nesting where their ances- 

 tors did before them. 



That Cartier's description of the islands does not accord with 

 their present appearance is not to be wondered at. The material 

 of which they are composed is a soft, decomposing, red sand- 

 stone that succumbs so easily to the incessant attacks of the sea 

 that Dr. Bryant's description of them in iS6o does not hold good 

 to-day. If, then, the Bird Rocks have undergone visible changes 

 in twenty-five years, it is easy to imagine how great alterations 

 the islets may have undergone during three and a quarter cen- 

 turies. 



Dr. Bryant in 1861 wrote as follows: "These [theBird Rocks] 

 are two in number, called the Great Bird or Gannet Rock, and 

 the Little or North Bird ; they are about three-quarters of a mile 

 apart, the water between them very shoal, showing that, at no 

 very distant epoch, they formed a single island. . . . The North 

 Bird is much the smallest and though the base is more accessible, 

 the summit cannot, I believe, be reached, at least, I was unable 

 to do so ; it is the most irregular in its outline, presenting many 

 enormous detached fragments, and is divided in one place into 

 two separate islands at high water ; the northerly one several 

 times higher than broad, so as to present the appearance of a 

 huge rocky pillar. 



"Gannet Rock is a quarter of a mile in its longest diameter 

 from S. W. to N. E. The highest point of the rock is at the 

 northerly end where, according to the chart, it is 140 feet high, 

 and from which it gradually slopes to the southerly end, where 

 it is from 80 to 100. 



"The sides are nearly vertical, the summit in many places over- 

 hanging. There are two beaches at its base on the south- 

 erly and westerly sides, the most westerly one comparatively 

 smooth and composed of rounded stones. The easterly one, on 

 the contrary, is very rough and covered by irregular blocks, 

 many of large size and still angular, showing that they have but 

 recently fallen from the cliffs above. This beach is very difficult 



* I am indebted to the courtesy of Commander J. R. Bartlett, Chief of the Hydro- 

 graphic Office, and to Mr. G. W. Littlehales, of the Division of Chart Construction, for 

 very kindly supplying me with data to aid in solving this problem. 



