154 WILD WINGS 



my previous visit I had secured a photographic equipment 

 of rapid lens and shutter suited for picturing birds in flight. 

 The thoughts of the results obtainable with such an instru- 

 ment by a practised hand upon these ledges crowded with 

 sea-birds was enough to keep an enthusiast awake at night. 

 Previously published pictures showed the birds mainly in 

 repose. Now one might hope to portray them in all their 

 wild activities. 



Hence it came about that a party of four reached the 

 Magdalen Islands on the seventeenth of last June, and took 

 up quarters upon Grosse Isle, to make some researches there 

 among the northern birds, and to go to the Rock upon the 

 first favorable opportunity. It was a promising beginning that 

 within half an hour of landing I found a nest of the beautiful 

 Fox Sparrow containing four heavily marked eggs. Close 

 upon this followed from day to day discoveries of nests of 

 interesting shore-birds, ducks, and other birds of water and 

 land. Yet Bird Rock was our Mecca. From the great head- 

 lands we could see it on clear days grimly towering far out 

 to sea, and at night watch the mocking twinkle of its light 

 elusive and baffling indeed, for we were stranded. The 

 large schooner we had hoped to engage had gone off on 

 a protracted voyage, and there was no other. A small tug 

 that had recently come to Grand Entry had broken down 

 and was unseaworthy. 



Either we must give up our cherished project or go in 

 some small open fishing-boat, if, indeed, we could find a man 

 who dared attempt it. Fishermen shook their heads. The 

 Rock lies out toward Newfoundland and Labrador twenty- 

 two miles as the murre flies from Grosse Isle. There is only 

 one possible landing-place under the tremendous cliffs, a pile 

 of jagged rocks which have fallen down on one part of the 

 west side, upon which, as against the cliffs themselves, the 



