26 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



" The Old Red Sandstone," " Testimony of the Rocks," " Foot- 

 prints of the Creator," and which he used as weapons to belabor 

 the growing ideas of transmutation and evolution. Hugh Miller 

 was a great Scot; he gave to his generation of three-fourths of a 

 century ago the first lucid account of these Old Red Sandstone 

 creatures, but not only that; he wrote inviting books, not always 

 of science, but always clothed in vigorous and effective diction ; 

 he fought for a freedom of thought and action in civic and ecclesias- 

 tical affairs. But most of all he remains a great and inspiring lover 

 of the rocks whose influence spread far afield through the English- 

 speaking world. 



These cliffs on Scaumenac bay are to bear his name and serve 

 as his memorial in a country which he never saw but over whose 

 foundation stones he labored well. The Hugh Miller Cliffs have, at 

 the writer's suggestion, been thus formally and officially designated 

 by the Commission de Geographie de Quebec (Bulletin 9:86, 1915). 



BIRD NESTING-PLACES ON PERCE ROCK, BONAVENTURE ISLAND AND 

 THE BIRD ROCKS OF THE MAGDALEN ISLANDS 



As the earnest of an interest which can recognize no political 

 boundaries but is founded in the broad concern for the preservation 

 of nature's works, reference may be here made with propriety to 

 the efforts toward the official establishment of bird sanctuaries on 

 the islands of the Gulf of St Lawrence. As a part of the activities 

 of the Director it is not inappropriate that record be made of these 

 efforts. 



There was a time not far back in our history when many of 

 the islands of the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Quebec Labrador 

 were nesting places of clouds of sea fowl, preeminent among which 

 in beauty and abundance was the Gannet or Solan goose. The early 

 navigators of the gulf saw and in their relations made record of 

 these great bird colonies, in terms of astonishment and wonder that 

 such myriads of birds could find room even to congregate on such 

 insulated fragments of land. 



But no sooner were these colonies discovered than they and their 

 eggs became the prey of sailor and fisherman and their very contact 

 with humanity has brought about their impending demolition. All 

 the world knows the fate of the Great auk, the first member oi 

 these colonies to be totally extinguished by the hand oi man. 

 Audubon, three- fourths of a century ago, seeing the destruction 

 going on among them by the ruthless robbing of nests at all those 

 Spots, cried out against it and foresaw extinction for all these races. 



