THE SAVING OF THE SEA BIRDS OF THE 

 GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE 



BY DR. JOHN M. CLARKE 



Director of the New York State Museum, Albany. 



The following historic record of recent events of im- 

 portance to North American bird life was kindly pre- 

 pared by Dr. Clarke at the request of the editor of this 

 volume. It reveals a light that to most Americans has, 

 to date, been "hidden under a bushel/' but which well 

 deserves a place in the recorded history of North Ameri- 

 can bird protection. — W. T. H. 



SOME seven or eight years ago the horrible slaughter of 

 the birds on the Bonaventure cliffs by tourists who 

 thought it fine sport to fill a boat with dead Gannets, aroused 

 general indignation on the coast, and these activities were 

 the cause of some protesting letters from me to influential 

 friends in Canada, and in 1914 and 1915 I was asked by the 

 Royal Society of Canada to present the matter at the annual 

 meeting of the Society in Montreal. Just about this time a 

 memorial, drawn by the lease-holders of certain salmon 

 fishing reserves in Gaspe, protesting against alleged activi- 

 ties of the Crested Cormorant in the destruction of the 

 young salmon was sent to the Minister of Fisheries at 

 Ottawa and an order was issued to Commander Wakeham, 

 Chief Game Inspector for the Gulf of St. Lawrence, to have 

 the Crested Cormorants which nest on the summit of the 

 Perce Rock destroyed. Commander Wakeham proceeded to 

 arrange for the execution of his instructions although he 

 did it reluctantly, as I know from personal correspondence 

 with him at the time when I expressed regret at the action 

 taken. A protest was made against this order by a number 

 of the citizens of Gaspe, but the effective protest came from 

 the Province of Quebec itself, which demurred to the in- 

 vasion of its authority in this case by the Central Govern- 



