26 The Lower St. Lawrence. 



the shell-fish, barnacles, &c., which cling to the shelving 

 rocks round Plateau and Bonaventure Islands at Gasp6. 

 We have watched the gannet, the herring-gull, the cormorant, 

 hovering in clouds over Perc^ Rock, on whose verdant sum- 

 mit they build and find an asylum secure from their great 

 destroyer— man. We have seen their young shot by thou- 

 sands for food in the month of August. It is not an uncom- 

 mon thing in the fall of the year for the Gaspe fishermen to 

 kill as many as twenty ducks at one shot in the air-holes 

 among the ice, down which the hungry birds crowd to feed. 



Where is the Canadian sportsman who would not give 

 almost the world for a week on the Mille Vaches shoals in 

 September } Where is the fowler who has not heard of the 

 sport which Jupiter River, on Anticosti, affords .? 



Father Point, lower down than Rimouski, during strong 

 easterly winds, affords capital sport ; Canada geese. Brent 

 geese and ducks, are perpetually hovering over the extreme 

 end of the point ; the fowler, carefully concealed, pours a 

 deadly volley into the flock, and his faithful Newfoundland 

 dog springs into the surf and fetches out the dead birds. 



The Perroquet Rocks, at the entrance of the Straits of Belle 

 Isle, which have acquired an unenviable notoriety by the loss 

 of the North Briton, abound in puffins or sea-parrots, pretty 

 little web-footed birds about the size of pigeons, and marked 

 with variegated colours, — hard to kill and tough to eat. 



Six miles further down the coast is the Hudson Bay Com- 

 pany's Post, at the mouth of the celebrated salmon river 

 Mingan. The resident agent there was a leader of one of the 

 exploring parties for Sir John Franklin. Any sportsman 

 whose ardour leads liim to these sequestered haunts, will find 

 in Mr. J. Anderson a most hearty friend. 



Seal Rocks, in the Traverse, a broad reach in the river, 

 about 1 8 miles in length, are a delightful small game preserve, 

 so bountifully stocked with ducks, teal, and plover, that a 

 club of chasseurs of St Jean Portfjoli have leased it from 



