The Birds c f 
Labrador. 
(239) THE BIRD WORLD 
The Birds of Labrador. 
In his “ Journal of a Residence on the 
Coast of Labrador,” published . at 
Newark in 1792, George Cartwright 
gave a graphic account of the swarms 
of birds nesting on the storm-swept cliffs 
of that country, and related how on one 
occasion his party, in i 77 *b took about 
a thousand eggs from a single rock, 
which had already been visited four 
times by parties of egg-gatherers during 
the same season. This seems, however, 
to have been nothing compared with 
what took place rather more than half 
a century later, when Audubon, writing 
in 1833, stated that a party of four men 
from Halifax collected in about two 
months nearly 40,000 eggs, for which 
they realised on their return, by selling 
them at twenty-five cents per dozen, no 
less than $800. In the previous year 
he related that twenty vessels were en¬ 
gaged in the egging trade, from which 
some idea may be gained of the numbers 
carried away ) while later on he men¬ 
tioned that the collectors destroyed all 
the incubated eggs they could find in 
order to induce the birds to lay again 
and again, with the result that a large 
number of the old birds perished from 
exhaustion, while comparatively few 
nestlings were reared. 
Audubon's Prophecy. 
Audubon predicted that if matters 
were allowed to go on in this way these 
wonderful nurseries would be exhausted 
in less than half a century. Dr. Storer, 
who visited the “egg islands” in 1849, 
found, however, in certain places the 
eggs lying so thickly upon the ground 
that care was necessary in order to avoid 
trampling upon them. He imagined, in¬ 
deed, that, despite the enormous traffic 
in eggs, the number of birds could 
scarcely ever have been greater than at 
the time of his visit. 
A different tale was told by M. A. 
Frazer in 1884, who found that while 
the “ Murres ” (Guillemots) had been al¬ 
most decimated by the Halifax eggers, 
the local fishermen were responsible for 
a vast diminution in the number of birds 
of other species. A previous observer, 
George Barnston, writing in 1861, esti¬ 
mated the total annual destruction of 
Wild Geese of various species in the 
southern half of Hudson’s Bay at from 
74,000 to 80,000 head, of which about 
three-fourths were killed in autumn. 
Destruction Checked. 
This deplorable destruction of bird 
life has now to some extent received a 
check, and it is satisfactory to learn 
from a paper on the birds of Labrador, 
published in the “ Proceedings ” of the 
Boston Natural History Society, by 
Messrs. C. W. Townsend and G. M. 
Allen (to whom we are indebted for the 
foregoing particulars) that in Canadian 
Labrador protective laws against egging 
and shooting breeding birds are fairly 
well enforced. On the other hand, in 
Newfoundland Labrador, comprising a 
strip of coast extending from Blanc 
Sablon on the south eastwards to Cape 
Charles, and thence northwards along the 
eastern coast, there seems, according to 
the same observers, “to be no pretence 
of either bird or egg protection.” 
Canine Hunters. 
A certain proportion of the destruction 
is inflicted by Eskimo dogs, which are 
not fed in summer by their masters, but 
have to forage for themselves. The 
great bulk of the eggs and birds is, how¬ 
ever, taken by the fishermen, who un¬ 
doubtedly have, under proper restric¬ 
tions, the first claim to a share of the 
bounty provided by Nature. 
The birds killed include not only 
Ducks and Geese, but even Gulls, which 
are shot for their flesh, as well as for 
their feathers. Ptarmigan are at times 
killed in vast numbers and stored in 
