130 Bllil" STUDIES WITH A CAMEKA 



may be applied to many of tlie rocky islets of the 

 gulf, in the latter it relates exclusively to ihe Bird 

 Rocks at the northeastern end of the Magdalen 

 group. 



Perc^ Rock, Bonaventure Island, the Magdalens, 

 and the Bird Rocks themselves seemed to offer the 

 Lest opportunities to the bird photographer, and, 

 accompanied by my best assistant, I departed for the 

 first named on July 2, bS98. 



Perce Rock'' (so named because its base has been 

 pierced by the action of the waves) lies about three 

 hundred feet off the land at the town of Perc^, on 

 the west side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



A semiweekly steamer from Dalhousie, near the 

 head of Bay of Chaleur, furnishes the regular means 

 of C(.immunication with Perce, and the town at once 

 possesses a distinction over any place on the line of 

 a railway. For, aside from every other reason, there 

 is a pervasiveness about the smoke oi a railway 

 locomotive which contaminates the atmosphere and 

 robs local influences of half their ])otency. Doubt- 

 less there are persons who wo;i]d be glad tn change 

 the aroma of Perc(''s fishya-rds for the stifling air of 

 a railway tunnel, but give me the pungent odor of 

 Percy's drying cod unadiilterated. 



Even the steamer does not touch Perct', and we 

 were landed by a boat in a sea just rough enough to 

 make the experience interesting. At the ])ier no 

 hotel agent greeti'd us, for Perce ]iossesses neither 

 hotel nor Ixiai'ding house, and summer resorters are 

 almost unknown. This was a delightful discovery. 

 We had come in se:u'(di nf an isolated colony of 

 birds, and we found also an isolated colony of man 



