96 EARLY ANNALS OF ORNITHOLOGY 
The Solan Geese of Canada.—Although these annals of 
the past are chiefly confined to British birds, there is no 
particular reason for thus limiting them, for the history 
of ornithology in the Middle Ages in other countries is also 
replete with openings for study—indeed, there is very much 
which will repay investigation between about a.p. 1450 and 
A.D. 1700, both in Europe and in the New World. In former 
days the Solan Geese had breeding-places in North America, 
which have long since become deserted. One of these, which 
was on Funk Island, Newfoundland, is described as follows 
in the quaint log-book of an adventurous French navigator 
named Jacques Cartier. 
Translation after Richard Hakluyt, the geographer.* 
“Upon the 21 of May [1534],” says Cartier, ‘‘ the winde 
being in the West, we hoised saile, and sailed toward North 
and by East from the cape of Buona Vista [on the east of 
Newfoundland] until we came to the Island of Birds, which 
was environed about with a banke of ice, but broken and 
crackt : notwithstanding the sayd banke, our two boats went 
thither to take in some birds, whereof there is such plenty, 
that unlesse a man did see them, he would thinke it an incredible 
thing : for albeit the Island (which containeth about a league 
in circuit) be so full of them, that they seeme to have been 
brought thither, and sowed for the nonce, yet are there an 
hundred folde as many hovering about it as within ; some of 
the which are as big as jayes, blacke and white, with beaks 
like unto crowes : they lie alwayes upon the sea ; they cannot 
flie very high, because their wings are so little, and no bigger 
than halfe ones hand, yet do they flie as swiftly as any birds 
of the aire levell to the water; they are also exceeding fat ; 
we named them Aporath [? Razorbill (Alcea torda)]. In lesse 
than halfe an houre we filled two boats full of them, as if 
they had bene with stones: so that besides them which we 
did eat fresh, every ship did powder and salt five or six barrels 
full of them. Besides these, there is another kinde of birds 
* “The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries 
of the English Nation.” By Richard Hakluyt (Edition 1904), pp. 184, 192 
Hakluyt’s translation is here slightly altered to bring it into line with the 
“ Relation Originale.”” For a knowledge of this ‘‘ Relation ”’ having been 
recently published in English—see “ A Memoir of Jacques Cartier,” by J. P. 
Baxter—I am indebted to Mr. Francis Jenkinson, 
