April, 1920] 



The Canadian Field-Naturaust 



79 



the Provincial Government to make Perce Rock, 

 Bonaventure Island and Bird Rock near the Mag- 

 dalens, bird reservations. This splendid piece of 

 work w^as accomplished in 1918 and the wonderful 

 colonies in these three localities are now protected 

 for all time. These reservations are of great value 

 and interest not only to ornithologists but to the gen- 

 eral public and they will become more and more 

 known and visited. Both Perce Rock and Bona- 

 venture Cliffs have a beauty and grandeur of size 

 and form and coloring that is unequalled along our 

 Atlantic Coast, but their wonderful charm is in- 

 creased manyfold by the variety and abundance of 

 the bird life that adorns them. The Provincial 

 Government, which has made them reservations, to- 

 gether with Bird Rock off the Magdalens, is to be 

 greatly congratulated, and it is to be hoped that 

 this is but the beginning of their work and that 

 other reservations may be added elsewhere, especi- 

 ally along the Labrador Coast where they are so 

 much needed. The splendid work of the Audubon 

 Society in the United States may well be taken as 

 a model. 



The Gaspe Peninsula projects like a lower lip at 

 the mouth of the St. Lawrence River into the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence. It lies north of New Brunswick 

 from which it is separated by the Bay of Chaleur 

 and the Restigouche River. A single track railway 

 runs along the southern shore nearly to the end of 

 the peninsula at Gaspe, and for a few miles along 

 the northern shore as far as Matan. A carriage 

 road follows the shore of the whole peninsula and 

 there are a few short side roads extending but a 

 mile or two into the interior which is an uninhabited 

 region of forest and mountains. Villages inhabited 

 for the most part by fishermen of French and Chan- 

 nel Island descent, are scattered along the coast. 



The geology of the Gaspe Peninsula is most in- 

 teresting and complicated. At Perce, for example, 

 are outcrops of Cambrian, Silurian and Devonian 

 limestones with strata almost vertical, overlaid in 

 places with a great mantle of horizontal red sand- 

 stones and conglomerates. The mountains near the 

 north coast are of gray Silurian limestones and 

 serpentines. At the places visited there was no evi- 

 dence of general glaciation, but only of slight and 

 local glaciation. There are few lakes and the 

 streams are deeply cut. 



The vegetation is of the Hudsonian type, — the 

 forest is largely of spruce,- — black and white, and 

 balsam fir. Arbor vitae, canoe birches and aspens 

 are common. A few white pines, larches, yellow 

 birches, mountain ashes and sugar maples are to be 

 seen. The avifauna is largely Canadian with a num- 

 ber of Hudsonian and also of Transition forms. 



The itinerary of my trip was as follows: — 



Crossing on July 5th, 1919 from Campbellton, 



New Brunswick, where the Restigouche River meets 

 the Bay of Chaleur, I spent two days at Cross 

 Point in the Township of Mann, and had an op- 

 portunity to observe the birds in the woods and 

 fields there. July 7th was occupied in travelling the 

 150 miles to Cape Cove, from which I was taken 

 by automobile nine miles to Perce. The railroad 

 journey was such a leisurely one, with so many 

 breakdowns of the engine that I was able to see 

 something of the birds and flowers of the region. 

 At Perce, a quaint little French fishing village with 

 beautiful setting of rock, cliff and mountain, I 

 stayed until August 6th and explored the neighbor- 

 hood including Bonaventure Island, Corner of the 

 Beach and Barachois. On the latter date I went 

 by motor boat some twenty-eight miles to Grande 

 Greve near the eastermost tip of the Forillon, the 

 narrow peninsula that stretches between Gaspe Bay 

 and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Here I stayed until 

 August 25th and explored the neighborhood in- 

 cluding a walking trip through Cape Rosier and 

 Griffin Cove to Fox River, and back through the 

 "portage" to Peninsula, and along the southern coast 

 of the Forillon to Grand Greve. A day was spent 

 in the neighborhood of Douglastown on the southern 

 side of Gaspe Bay and another at Gaspe and on the 

 lower waters of the York River. 



Before presenting the annotated list I would say 

 a few words about the two new bird reservations 

 at Perce. 



Perce Rock is an isolated mass of nearly vertical 

 strata of Devonian limestone some 1 500 feet long, 

 and 288 feet high at its highest point and 300 feet 

 wide at its greatest breadth. It is connected with 

 the shore only at low tides by a bar two or three 

 hundred yards long. At the outer end stands a 

 smaller isolated mass or pinacle. The main rock is 

 pierced by an arch with a span of about eighty feet 

 and from this the rock receives its name. Perce 

 Rock is an object of exceeding beauty not only on 

 account of its striking shape and great size, but also 

 on account of the brilliancy and variety of its col- 

 ouring. Its beauty and interest are greatly en- 

 hanced by its bird inhabitants which throng its in- 

 accessible summit and form a circling cloud. Breed- 

 ing Kittiwakes to the number of about 400, occupy 

 the shelves and niches of the northern face over the 

 arch. Double-crested Cormorants, a thousand or 

 more and Herring Gulls to the number of 2,000 

 breed on the flat surface of the summit. A few 

 Black Guillemots nest in some of the holes and 

 corners on the sides of the rock. 



I was enabled to make a fairly intimate study of 

 the home life of these birds of the summit through 

 the kindness of Mrs. Frederick James, whose late 

 husband was the beloved artist of the little village 

 of Perce. At her invitation I spent many interest- 



