158 BIRD STUDIES WITH A CAMERA 



hurried, fearful confusion as to throw each other 

 down, often falling on each other until there is a 

 bank of them many fe^et high. The men strike 

 them down and kill them until fatigued or satisfied. 

 Five hundred and forty have been thus murdered 

 in one hour by six men. The birds are skinned 

 with little care, and the flesh cut oft' in chunks ; it 

 will keep fresh about a fortnight. So great is the 

 destruction of these birds annually that their flesh 

 supplies the bait for upward of forty fishing boats 

 which lie close to Bryon Island, each summer." 



This slaughter was evidently attended by some 

 danger, for not only did the sitting birds bite vi- 

 ciously, but old fishermen in the Magdalen s state 

 that if the invader of the Gannets' domain on the 

 summit of the Rock should have happened to be 

 caught in a rush of stampeded birds, he could with 

 difficulty have avoided being carried off the edge of 

 the cliff. 



In concluding his description of the Rock, Audu- 

 bon says : " No man who has not seen what we have 

 this day can form the least idea of the impression 

 the sight made on our minds." One need not be a 

 naturalist, therefore, to realize the depth of his dis- 

 appointment when the pilot told him that the wind 

 was too high to permit them to land on the Rock. 

 However, they did not leave without at least mak- 

 ing an attempt. A boat was launched, manned by 

 the pilot, two sailors, Audubon's son John, and Tom 

 Lincoln, for whom Lincoln's Finch, discovered sub- 

 sequently in Labrador, was named ; but after an 

 hour's absence they returned without having made 

 a landing, and the increasing force of the wind com- 



