498 KEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



animal was oecasionally seen in the gulf during tiie first part of the 

 present century. 



A little after noon on July 9 we came to anchor off the Bird Rocks, a 

 spot full of interest both to the naturalist and historian, for tbese little 

 islets were resorted to for supplies by the old navigators, and we find 

 them several times mentioned in Hakluy t's Voyages, first, so far as I am 

 aware, by Jacques Cartier in June, 1534. 



Carrier's account runs thus: 



The uext day being the 25 of the moueth, the weather was also stormie, darke, 

 aud windy, but yet we sailed a part of the day toward west-northwest, and in the 

 evening wee put ourselves athwart untill the second quarter; when, as we departed, 

 then did we by our compasse know that we were northwest by west about seven 

 leagues aud an halfe from the Cape of S. John, and as wee were about to hoise saile 

 the wind turned into the northwest, wherefore wee went southeast about 15 leagues, 

 and came to three Hands, two of which are as steepe and upright as any wall, so 

 that it was not possible to climbe them, and betweene them there is a little rocke. 



These Hands were as full of birds as any field or medow is of grasse, which there 

 do make their uestes, aud in the greatest of them there was a great and infinite num- 

 ber ot those that we call Margaulx, that are white and bigger than any geese, wliich 

 were severed in one part. In the other were onely Godetz, but toward the shoare 

 there were of those Godetz and great Apponatz like to those of that iland that we 

 above have mentioned. We went dowue to the lowest part of the least iland where 

 we killed above a thousand of those Godetz and Apponatz. We put into our boates 

 so many of them as we pleased, for in lesse than one houre we might have filled thirtie 

 such boats of them. 



We named them the Hands of Margaulx.* 



Charles Leigh's account of his visit in 1597 is as follows : 



The 14 (of June) we came to the two Islands of Birds, some 23 leagues from Mene- 

 go, where there were such abundance of birds as is almost incredible to report. And 

 upon the lesse of these Islands of Birds we saw great store of morsses or sea-oxen, 

 which were a sleepe upon the rocks, but when we approached uere unto them with 

 our boate they cast themselves into the sea and pursued us with such furie as that 

 we were glad to flee from them. The 16 we arrived at Brian's Island, which lyeth 5 

 leagues west from the Island of Birds.! 



And a little further on we find him telling us that — 



The greatest of these islands is about a mile in compasse. The second is little lesse. 

 The third is a very little one, like a small rocke. At the second of these thi'ee Jay on 

 the shore in the sunshine about thirty or forty sea-oxen or morses, which, when our 

 boat came nere them, presently made into the sea, and swam after the boat.t 



That Cartier's "Isles des Margaulx" are the Bird Rocks of to-day 

 seems unquestionable, although no locality at all can be found by fol- 

 lowing the courses and distances given as having been sailed on June 

 24 and 25, 1534. 



But by following Cartier northward from Buena Vista, through the 

 Strait of Belle Isle, and thence southward, we learn from the latitudes 



* Hakluyt's "Collection of Voyages." London, 1600, Vol. in, p. 205. 



t Ilakluyt, Vol. hi, p. 242. 



i Hakluyt, Vol. in, \}. 249. This has the appearance of being a revision of the first 

 account, written either much later or by a better scholai than the writer Qf the 

 description on p. 242. 



