REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I9I4 3I 



be afforded, become more and more a necessity as the remoter 

 regions of our land become more readily accessible and more fully 

 settled. 



Our governments, yours and mine, in the splendid national parks 

 which have been set apart, have furnished almost ideal conditions 

 for the safe reproduction of the species of birds that naturally in- 

 habit them, but these are great parks and from their size and cost 

 of maintenance must always be too few in number sufficiently to 

 supplement other means of protection. We find growing up about 

 us in the wholesome development of public sentiment on this mat- 

 ter of protection, private refuges for bird and beast, and I count 

 it among these wholesome developments of our civilization that 

 these reserved spots on this estate, on that private domain, a breed- 

 ing place near some municipality taken in charge by some private 

 organization ; that such refuges as these are increasing ; and I 

 find, too, in such a proposition as has been brought to the attention 

 of the Province of Quebec by Colonel Wood regarding the sanctuar- 

 ies or refuges for the native races of animals in the Quebec 

 Labrador, a fine expression of the earnest desire and purpose of 

 the lover of nature to protect the works of nature. 



Now it is needless for me to say that small areas taken at random 

 can accomplish much toward the preservation of our natural bird 

 species. To be effective, a small reservation must be located at 

 some point to which the failing species themselves have made resort 

 for the especial attractions and facilities the places offer for their 

 multiplication, and this brings us immediately to the consideration 

 of the islands of the Gulf of St Lawrence and their bird colonies. 



Time was in the early days when all the islands off the coast of 

 the gulf and in the gulf and off the coast of the Labrador, were 

 to our Atlantic coast what the islands of the Hebrides, Saint Kilda, 

 Ailsa Craig on the west and Bass rock on the east of Scotland, 

 the Skelligs off Kerry, and its neighbors off Devonshire, all these 

 islands with their wondrous colonies of these very birds with which 

 our attention is now concerned, have been to Britain. 



The present condition of the Gulf of St Lawrence nesting places 



The Bird rocks 



These islands, constituting the northernmost member of the Mag- 

 dalen islands group, belonging to the county of Gaspe and lying 

 120 miles out in the gulf, consist of three isolated rock masses, the 

 first or the Great Bird, covering about 7 acres, and the Lesser Birds, 

 which are two bare rock masses, lying close at hand on the west 

 and being little more than rock reefs. The Great Bird has no 

 human population except the lightkeeper and his attendants. The 

 bird colony here consists of several species of waterfowl of which 

 the Gannet or Solan goose is preponderant, the others being the 

 Razorbill auk, the Puffin, the murres and the Kittiwake. 



In the days of the early settlements, this '' Isle-aux-Margaulx," 

 as it was called by Cartier, housed an enormous and numberless 



