A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Socictics 



Vol. 1 



June, 1899 



No. 3 



Gannets on Bonaventure 



BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 

 {See Frontispiece) 



ANNETS {Sitla Imssana) are known to nest in only three 

 places in North America — Perroquet Island, the Bird 

 Rocks, and Bonaventure Island, all in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. By far the largest colony is found on the last 

 named island, where, on the ledges of the red sandstone 

 cliffs, some three hundred feet in height, they are practically 

 secure from molestation. Bonaventure Island itself, how- 

 ever, is the most accessible of the three localities men- 

 tioned, and may be easily reached in a small fishing boat 

 from the neighboring village of Perc^, where the famous Perc6 Rock, 

 with its colony of Herring Gulls and Double-crested Cormorants, 

 makes the region particularly interesting to the ornithologist. 



The Gannet cliffs are on the east side of Bonaventure, and are 

 e.xposed to the full force of the sea. To visit them satisfactoril}', 

 therefore, one should select a calm day, when one may closely 

 approach the cliffs, and view with both safety and comfort the long, 

 white rows, containing thousands of birds nesting on the shelves 

 and ledges on the face of the cliff ; a remarkable spectacle ! 



The unusually turbulent sea which prevailed during my visit to 

 these cliffs, on July ii, 1898, prevented me from securing satisfactory 

 pictures from a boat, but, landing on the west side of Bonaventure, 

 I crossed the island (here about one and a half miles in width), and 

 reached a position on the crest of the cliffs, from which the accom- 

 panying picture was made. About four hundred Gannets are shown 

 nesting on this single ledge — one of many quite as densely populated. 

 Preparations were made to secure a picture of these birds on the 

 wing, but my best efforts to startle them into flight did not succeed 

 in making a single bird leave its nest ! 



