THE BIRD ROCK GROUP 

 A Study of ax Island Colony 



To the preserving influence of island-life we owe the continued exis- 

 tence of many birds that have long ceased to live, or, at least, to nest, 

 on the mainland. In every instance, however, whether the island be a 

 thousand square miles or one square foot (as a ( Irebe's floating nest) in 

 extent, it owes the preservation of its bird-life to the same canst — the 

 entire or comparative absence of bird enemies, terrestrial mammals in 

 particular. 



Bird Hock, with its neighbor, Little Bird Hock, belongs to the Mag- 

 dalen Group in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is 351 yards long, from 50 to 

 140 yards wide, and rises abruptly from the sea to a height of from 80 

 to 140 feet. Its vertical rocky walls are weathered into innumerable 

 ridges, shelves and crevices — fit sites for the nests of the sea-birds that 

 for centuries have made the Rock their home. The birds, furthermore, 

 have found an abundance of food (chiefly fish), in the surrounding waters. 



The Bird Rock Group was not definitely planned as a "habitat 

 group," but rather as a picture of part of a famous and impressive bird 

 colony and a permanent record of a characteristic phase of island-lite. 



The material for the group was collected in July, 1898, and for many 

 years the group marked the highest point reached in the presentation of 

 bird-life. It includes examples of the various species that breed — one 

 can hardly say nest — on the rock, the most noteworthy and noticeable 

 being the great white Gannets. Then come the Murres, Razorbills and 

 Puffins, the graceful Kittiwake, and, last and least, Leach's Petrel, 

 seldom seen because it nests in little burrows like rat-holes and comes 

 and goes at night. 



The Bird Rocks are of interest alike to naturalist and historian, for 

 their story begins with the discovery of these little islets by Jacques 

 ('artier in June, 1534. He records his visit as follows: "These islands 

 were as full of birds as any meadow is of grass, which there do make 

 their nests, and in the greatest of them there was a great and infinite 

 number of that that we called Margaulx that are white and bigger than 

 any geese, which were severed in one part. In the other were only 

 Godetz and Great Apponatz, like to those of that island that we above 

 have mentioned. We went down to the lowest part of the least islands, 

 where we killed above a thousand of those (iodetz and Apponatz. We 

 put into our boats as many as we pleased, for in less than an hour we 

 might have filled thirty such boats of them. We named them the islands 

 of the Margaulx." 



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