A SUMMER COLONY AT ANTICOSTI. 
BY JOSEPH SCHMITT, M. D. 
Plate VII. 
Anticosti Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where I have 
lived for some years as medical doctor in the service of the pro¬ 
prietor, Mr. Henri Menier, offers for study many very interesting 
subjects of natural history. In respect to birds, I will now call at¬ 
tention to a summer colony of sea-birds, which, while not having 
the importance of several famous bird rocks, as those at Perce, 
nevertheless deserves special mention. Here in a bay is Gull Cliff, 
facing northeast, which, from May until September is the resort 
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very near the shore. The approach of the boat disquieted the 
colony, and it was all in confusion, as when the anchor is let go 
the sound of the chain is echoed from the cliff. Then from every 
jutting point of the rocks numberless birds fly off, but they soon 
return again. If we land with the ship’s boat there is a new dis¬ 
quiet in the colony, but the birds quickly compose themselves and 
soon begin again their continuous going and coming as if nothing 
had happened. 
At low water it is possible to land at the foot of this rock, where 
is light rubble, which is covered again at high water. This cliff, 
cut perpendicularly and nearly 200 feet high, is composed of layers 
of rock which offer numerous projections, every one of which 
contains a nest. The jutting point is often so small that the bird 
has just room enough to lay its eggs, and it often happens that 
the young as they increase in size, a few days after birth, in spite 
of wondrous equilibrium, cannot maintain themselves in the rudi- 
mental nest, and fall down the cliff where they are quickly drowned. 
On carefully observing these birds, we find that the greatest num¬ 
ber are Kittiwakes ( Rissa t ridactvla I which occupy the rock from 
the inferior third nearly to the summit. 
Among them we find grouped several families of Murres ( Uria 
troile') and, especially on the southern portion, some Puffins 
(.Fratercula arctica). Also here and there some Bonaparte Gulls 
{Larus Philadelphia') and above these and always near the top of 
the rock several nests of Cormorants ( Phalacrocorax dilophus). 
