A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OP BIRDS 



Vol. X November— December, 1908 No. 6 



The Sea Birds' Fortress 



By A. C. BENT 



WAY off in the middle of the stormy, fog-bound Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 stands lonely Bird Rock, twenty-five miles north of the Magdalen 

 Islands and sixty miles from Cape Breton. 



It forms the northeastern end of a chain of dangerous ledges, lying in the 

 path of vessels passing in and out of the St. Lawrence River, and is important 

 enough to be protected by a first-class lighthouse. Its red sandstone cliffs rise 

 for a hundred feet or more straight up from the sea, and even on the smoothest 

 day the waves thunder against its base, as they rise and fall with the ocean swell. 



The only human inhabitants of this isolated rock are the lighthouse keeper 

 and his family. They are visited twice a year by the government supply boat, 

 bringing provisions, newspapers and mail, but, aside from this, they seldom have 

 any communication with the outside world unless some stray fisherman lands 

 there from necessity, or some wandering bird student comes along to study the 

 sea birds in their summer home. 



During the long winter nights, when the gulf is closed to navigation, they 

 have nothing to do, no light to maintain and no fog whistle to manage. Yet 

 they say they feel their loneliness even more in the summer when they longingly 

 watch every passing sail, hoping for visitors, but are generally doomed to disap- 

 pointment. No wonder that they welcome the return of their feathered friends 

 in the spring, and no wonder they were glad to see us. 



We had engaged an experienced mariner, the owner of a staunch schooner 

 and the hero of many a successful smuggling trip, to take us from the Magdalen 

 Islands to Bird Rock on a certain date; but on our arrival at Grand Entry, the 

 northernmost port, we found, to our disgust, that he had just gone off on a three 

 weeks cruise elsewhere, without the slightest consideration of his promise to us. The 

 only other available craft, fit to make the trip, which is a dangerous one at best, 

 was a sea-going tug which, on investigation, we found was hopelessly disabled. 

 We were face to face with the two alternatives, to give up the main object of our 

 trip and go home beaten, or to make the trip in an open boat, a hitherto unac- 

 complished feat, except by a few hardy fishermen. But we secured the services 



