THE BIRD ROCKS OF THE GULF OF 
ST. LAWRENCE 
PERCE AND BONAVENTURE 
ORES GT 
:HE naturalist realizes with the ut- 
most sadness that the encroach- 
ments of civilization are rapidly 
changing the conditions of animal 
life on this small sphere of ours, 
and that soon he may find Nature 
primeval only in its more remote 
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or inaccessible parts. 
Forest life vanishes with the demand for timber, 
which sends the axeman in advance of the agricul- 
turist. The tillable plains, prairies, and bottom 
lands are transformed by the plow. The sandy 
beaches suffer with an eruption of summer hotels 
and cottages, and within the confines of civilization 
only such useless portions of the earth’s surface as 
the arid deserts and barren mountain tops, marshy 
wastes and rocky or far-distant islets, have been un- 
altered by man. 
It is especially to the preserving influences of 
island life that we owe the continued survival of 
many animals which have greatly decreased or be- 
come exterminated on the mainland, as has been 
remarked of the Terns and Heath Hen—two illus- 
128 
