80 Bird-Life in Labrador. 



ily and quickly, though they are best and most easily shot 

 while on the wing. The hunter will readily tell a flock of 

 u shell birds" from those of any other species at an immense 

 distance. 



HOODED MERGANSER 



Mergus cucullatus. (L.) 



RARE, but specimens are occasionally secured in localities 

 along the coast. 



COMMON GANNET SOLAN GOOSE 



Sula bassana, (L. ) 



COMMON in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the " bird 

 rocks/' where they breed in immense numbers. Occasionally 

 a stray specimen is seen on the Labrador coast, where we en- 

 countered it a number of times; but it is a rare bird there. 



COMMON CORMORANT SHAG 



Phafacrocorax carbo. (L.) LEA OH. 



THE Shag Rocks, off* the St. Mary Islands, are the great 

 abiding place of this and the succeeding species on the coast of 

 Labrador. Both are found here in equal abundance to all 

 appearances, and both are called equally the "shag." My notes 

 on these two species are as follows : Tuesday, May 24: At 

 eight o'clock we were just oif the St. Mary Islands, having 

 gone about eighty miles in twelve hours, and, counting the 

 curvature of the coast, a full hundred and sixty in the last 

 twenty-four; and yet on we go ! We pass Shag Rocks, a long 

 row of bare rocks, without vegetation of any kind, \vhere 

 the cormorants or shags breed in large numbers upon the 

 ledges of bare rock ; they use their own guano deposits for a 

 nest. There are two species of cormorants here; the common 

 cormorant (carbo), and the double-crested cormorant (dilophus) ; 



