IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



cession, shoot as many birds as they need, 

 collect the fresh eggs, and lay in a cargo. At 

 every step each ruffian picks up an egg so 

 beautiful that any man with a feeling heart 

 would pause to consider the motive which 

 could induce him to carry it off. But noth- 

 ing of this sort occurs to the egger, who gath- 

 ers and gathers until he has swept the rock 

 bare. The dollars alone chink in his sordid 

 mind, and he assiduously plies the trade which 

 no man would ply who had the talents and 

 industry to procure subsistence by honorable 

 means." 



Mr. M. Abbott Frazar in 1884 was much 

 impressed with the destruction of bird-life by 

 the fishermen. He says: "During the week 

 the men are all busy out in their dories fish- 

 ing, but their Sundays are their own and are 

 generally spent on the islands gathering eggs 

 and shooting birds, and they stop at nothing, 

 but shoot everything that flies whether eatable 

 or not, and shoot just for the sport they find 

 in destruction; and as they keep it up dur- 

 ing the whole season the poor birds have but 

 a slim show." He also saw a few Halifax eggers 

 on the coast. 



286 



