218 ANTICOSTI. 



cormorants, gulls, puffins, paroquets, and pigeons. These 

 birds all live sociably together. Hundreds of them lay 

 their eggs side by side on the same ledge of rock, and 

 may be seen seated in front of them in rows like soldiers. 

 On one occasion, when I fired a shot to alarm them, the 

 number that rose were so great that for a minute or two 

 I could hardly see the sky, and their droppings in the 

 water resembled a heavy shower of rain or hail. 



"Great numbers of geese hatch in the island in the 

 lagoons and ponds. On the 27th of May I was barbarous 

 enough to put a goose and her four eggs all in the pot 

 together, and when eating them could not help thinking 

 of the following line in 'The Dead Shot,' descriptive of 

 the pot-hunter : ' Despicable and despised, the inflictor of 

 torture, he has no music in his soul.' In the hatching 

 season I observed several small flocks of geese, who were 

 unincumbered with families, and evidently intended to 

 remain in that happy condition. I shot a good many of 

 these birds, and found them, unlike the hatching ones, 

 fat and plump. I noticed the same thing with ducks, 

 On the 18th of June I came across a flock of bachelor and 

 maiden black duck. I shot three or four of them, and I 

 never tasted better ducks in my life. Brant do not hatch 

 in the island, and, except in a couple of bays in the 

 western end, they do not seem to like it even as a resting 

 place. 



" Black duck are very abundant. They are always good 

 birds to eat, but late in the fall they are best. I think 

 there is no bird or . animal on this continent so wary 

 as the black duck ; they are always on the qui vive. 

 Here, where in all probability they have never heard 



