Isle Royale. 
Some ten miles north-east from the eastern 
end of Isle Royale lies a group of rocks, the j 
largest scarcely two acres in extent, looking in 
the distance like three black mounds resting 
on the blue waters of Lake Superior. 
For a number of years past this has been 
the principal nesting place in the north¬ 
west, of the American Herrin g Gull, and ow¬ 
ing to its isolated situation and inaccessibility 
has been visited, aside from the few fishermen 
who supply themselves with fresh eggs each 
year, by less than half a dozen people the past 
six years. 
On May 22nd my brother and myself were 
dropped from the fish boat Dixon in a small 
rowboat at the north-east end of Isle Royale 
intending to risk the row across the ten mile 
space to Gull Islands, but tempestuous weather 
prevented and we camped on the rocks until 
the 20tli, when we engaged the services of a 
Finland fisherman and his staunch sailboat for 
the trip. Starting at daylight we reached the 
rocks after a three-hours sail. 
Before the detail of the rocks are seen 
there is apparently no sign of life, but as we 
drew near, the rocks, as our fisherman ex¬ 
pressed it, looked as though they were covered 
with Snowbirds, distance dwarfing the Gulls 
in the clear air, but drawing still nearer they 
increase to their full size and present abeauti- 
full appearance on the black rocks. A half 
dozen came out a half mile to meet us with 
loud cries as a protest against this intrusion, 
and by the time we had landed at the only 
available spot on the islands the whole colony 
of over a thousand Gulls were either circling 
above with loud cries or resting on the water 
a short distance away. 
The ledge of rock composing the islands is 
inclined at an angle of 45°, and affords numer¬ 
ous deep niches which have become filled with 
guano, and form level places for the nests 
which were often formed by hollowing out a 
place in this deposit, but the majority of the 
nests were made of a peat-like substance, the 
roots or fibres of moss and coarse grass mixed 
and matted together, and whore they had not 
been disturbed by the fishermen, contained 
three eggs with incubation well started at this 
date. Some of the birds showed great lack of 
judgment in the location of their nests; one 
containing three eggs was located on a narrow 
gravel beach ten feet below, where the last 
north-easter had lodged the drift wood, and 
there were some thirty nests in this little patch 
of drift wood itself. But a still greater lack of 
judgment was shown by at least four differ¬ 
ent. Gulls who had placed their nest on top of the 
huge icebergs formed on the rocks by the dash¬ 
ing of waves last winter. The few warm days 
i had already honeycombed the mass and melted 
I away from around the nests leaving it resting 
!l on a white pillar of ice nearly two feet above 
the surrounding berg with one side of the nest 
already toppling down. A few more warm 
days would send the whole mass into the 
i lake. 
i We secured many beautiful sets of eggs, 
which show a wide range of marking. 
The rocks seem to bo well tenanted, besides 
the Gulls, numerous Warblers and small birds 
hung around the scraggly brush at one end 
of theA'ock, and a Sparrow dragged its wings as 
it fluttered along the ground, probably from its 
nest. A pair of Hawks, which we did not iden¬ 
tify, occupied the ends of two upright posts left 
by the United States surveyors years ago, and 
the ground beneath was covered with pellets 
which they had disgorged. During the season- 
of migration the smaller birds reach these 
rocks completely exhausted and these Hawks 
gorge themselves on the helpless victims. 
On approaching the island we saw three 
small birds fluttering towards it some little 
distance apart. The Hawk came out, seized 
one, deposited it somewhere on the rocks 
then whirled about and secured the next and 
deposited it with the other and finally secured 
the third. A shelving, mossy place about four 
feet square seemed to be a perfect slaughter 
pen for small birds; the bushes and rocks 
around were covered with feathers scattered by 
the winds, while this particular spot was cov¬ 
ered with the larger feathers and ends of wings 
of all kinds of smaller birds with a great many 
Flicker feathers mixed in to give it color. 
Scratching with a stick disclosed nearly an 
inch in depth of wet, matted feathers. The 
destruction of small birds by this one pair of 
Ilawks must have boon enormous. After the 
season of migration is over they pluck an 
occasional young Gull from its nest, and the 
fishermen claim that it attacks the old Gulls 
themselves when hungry. We found their nest 
on the highest part of the rocks containing 
two fresh eggs, the fisherman having destroyed 
a set of four three weeks previously. Of the 
Gull nests from which eggs were taken the 
same time, we found but a single fresh egg, 
showing that they had just commenced to lay 
the second set. Such eggs were much smaller 
than the first laying. We saved a few skins of 
I the female Gulls at the island, and after return¬ 
ing to Isle Royale shot and skinned a dozen 
males from a flock of fifty or sixty hovering 
about the fish houses, in fact all the Gulls shot 
away from the island were males. The facili¬ 
ties for reaching Isle Royale grow better each 
year, and it is a question of but a short time 
when this large nesting place will be broken 
up and its denizens forced beyond the limits 
of the United States. 
Loons are quite plentiful in the channels and 
harbors of Isle Royale, and the fishermen often 
catch them on their set lines when fishing for 
trout. A long line is anchored about two 
fathoms from the surface and short lines with 
hooks attached at intevals. These hooks are 
baited with herring about a foot long and these 
the Loon see beneath the water and in diving 
get caught on the hook. One fisherman had 
six on a line of seventy-five hooks the morn¬ 
ing before we arrived and had the breasts 
| skinned and tacked on the shed to dry to be 
used as lining for his boots. 
June 4, ’1)0. 
O.Ss 6. 
Frank S. Daggett. 
