7742 Birds. 



shelter in barns or houses, fell a victim to the cold in their usual roosting places, the 

 spruce fir and the other green trees with thick foliage. That beautiful songster, the 

 thrush, is net nearly so destructive in a garden as many suppose : his food consists 

 principally of worms, insects and caterpillars. The blackbiid is the great and wary 

 cormorant of the fruit garden, particularly as to strawberries and currants. The bull- 

 finch is a great destroyer of the buds of fruit trees ; but the best observers say the 

 buds are destroyed for the sake of an insect contained in them. This bird is evidently 

 decreasing in numbers. I have heard an old gamekeeper say that in a very hot sea- 

 son {1826) he observed some rooks destroying the eggs of a pheasant for the want of 

 water ; and they carry oflf scores of ripe apples and walnuts from the orchards. I will 

 merely add, in conclusion, that as long as we have large landed properties, held by 

 single proprietors, there is little fear of the extinction of our indigenous British birds ; 

 but should the law of primogeniture be abolished, as it is in France, the result would 

 be the same as it is in the latter country and in the island of Jersey, where small 

 native birds have been a great rarity for many years past. — H. W. Newman; Hillside, 

 Cheltenham, September 2, 1861. 



Remarks on some of the Birds that Breed in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence. By Henry Bryant, M.D. * 



The trip lo Labrador, made by me the past summer, for the pur- 

 pose of procuring specimeus of the eggs of those sea birds that breed 

 there, and also to ascertain what changes, if any, had taken place in 

 their economy since Audubon's visit, was unfortunately delayed till 

 the 21 st of June ; so that the results were much less satisfactory than 

 I hoped to have obtained. Instead of visiting Anlicosli and the whole 

 of the north shore, I was compelled to sail directly to the Bird Rocks, 

 thence to Roraaine, the nearest point to the north shore, and fi"om 

 thence, following the shore line, to Chateau Beau at the outlet of the 

 Straits of Belle Isle, the fai-thest point reached. 



The season was remarkably stormy and cold, and I was informed 

 by every one that such an inclement one had not been known for 

 years. This also delayed my progress and added much to the diffi- 

 culty of making researches, as many of the breeding places of this 

 class of birds are accessible only in pleasant weather. 



We sailed from Gaspe on the 21st, and arrived at the Bird Rocks 

 on the morning of the 23rd ; these are two in number, called the Great 

 Bird or Gannet Rock, and the Little or North Bird ; they are about 

 three-quarters of a mile apart, the water between them very shoal, 

 showing that, at no very distant epoch, they formed a single island. 

 They are composed entirely of a soft, reddish brown sandstone, the 



* From the ' Proceedings of the Boston Natural History Society,' vol. viii. 



