28 THE PROVENCHER SOCIETY 



count on the fingers of one hand the sportsmen that kill a dozen 

 geese in a season in the counties of Chicoutimi and Saguenay. 

 The ''Migratory Birds Convention Act" has been of immense 

 benefit to the United States, because all their game birds breed in 

 our territory, but I fail to see what Canada gains by it. In my 

 humble opinion we rather lose, on account of unnecessary and use- 

 less protection afforded to injurious birds, for what reasons other 

 than sentimental, no one seems to know. I call this misplaced 

 sentiment. Every year large sums of money are spent on fish 

 hatcheries and fish protection, freezing plants and cold storage for 

 bait, to be used in times of scarcity, and here comes this Act pro- 

 tecting,, for a period of ten years, a whole lot of injurious fish 

 eating birds, lake the merganser, for instance, an abundant duck, 

 breeding along all our rivers and lakes, a very prolific bird, feeding 

 mostly on the salmonidae. oons come next, similar in its choice 

 of breeding grounds and food. Gannets, cormorants, murres, gulls, 

 etc., are all in the same category, differing only in feeding on all 

 kinds of fish, according to habitat. A bird in one section of the 

 country may not cause much damage, while in another he may be 

 a regular pest. The eider duck, at one time very abundant, 

 breeding on nearly every island in the St. Lawrence, has been for 

 some years now, showing a considerable decrease. A wise regula- 

 tion has been passeVi, affording absolute protection for a period of 

 five ytears; but why afford the giill family, its worst enemy, a pro- 

 tection of ten years. The black backed gull, common everywhere 

 in the gulf of St. Lawrence, will feed indiscriminately on fish, eggs 

 and young birds. The jaegers or stercorarae are regular pirates. 

 None of these birds are in danger of extermination. The prohibi- 

 tion of taking the eggs of these birds is more than stifficient protec- 

 tion. The nesting sites of many of these birds are inaccessible 

 cliffs, very much similar to the Bird Rocks, Perce Rock, etc. There 

 are hundreds of these around Baffin Land, Hudson Straits and the 

 Labrador Coast. One loomery at Cape. Wolstenholme, western 

 entrance of Hudson's Strait deserves special mentioh. It is of 

 considerable extent, a high perpendicular cliff, full of fissures and 

 ledges, totally inaccessible to man or beast. When a shot is fired 

 from a boat at its base, the birds, mostly murres and dovekies 

 (lesser auk) fly out in dense masses and the droppings from the 

 birds falling on the water look like a rain squall. ' Icebergs in and 

 out of the straits and along the Newfoundland and Labrador 

 coasts are often covered with birds resting on them. Every 

 traveller or navigator in these northern regions cannot help to 

 observe them and be astonished at their countless numbers. 



For some unknown reasons, possibly scarcity of bait, (sand 

 eels and other small fishes) there occurs now and then a southern 

 migration of these murres and dovekies in a starving condition. 

 Thousands drop dead along their line of migration as they proceed. 

 In the fall of 1912 there was such a migration it lasted for over two 

 weeks, the duration of the flight each day, morning and evening, 

 was about six hours. Several days in succession I sat for an hour, 

 counting the flocks as they passed a prominent point of laud, 



