IN AUDUBON'S LABEADOR 



deplorable, and are rapidly leading to the utter 

 extinction of the water-birds. Spring shooting 

 confined to migratory birds, although unde- 

 sirable, is not so pernicious in its effects as 

 the shooting of birds on their arrival at their 

 breeding-grounds. This is practiced in the 

 case of all the birds that nest on the coast. At 

 Perroquet Island, in Bradore Bay, for exam- 

 ple, the arrival of the puffins or perroquets in 

 the spring is eagerly awaited by the inhabit- 

 ants, who make the occasion a great shooting 

 holiday. They encamp for several days on the 

 island and shoot down the poor birds as they 

 fly in a bewildered manner round and round 

 their homes. I was told by one man with 

 great glee that he sometimes shot two hundred 

 birds in a day. He added that the wounded 

 birds were generally lost, as they crawled into 

 the nesting-holes. 



I myself in 1909 witnessed, on a,nother island 

 where puffins bred, this cruel sport. The birds, 

 bewildered and frightened by the shooting, 

 circled about the island, and were picked off 

 by the gunner as they flew past. At Perroquet 

 Island the boys who have no guns lie behind 

 the rocks and strike down the birds with long 

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