BIRD 
The position of the rock, at the gateway 
of Canadian ports, makes it particularly 
dangerous to vessels plying in these waters, 
and in 1869 a lighthouse was erected on its 
summit. Several years later a cannon was 
added, which during fogs was discharged at 
thirty-minute intervals. 
Previous to the building of the lighthouse, 
the top of the rock could be reached at only 
one place, and there with much difficulty; 
but while constructing the light the govern- 
ment built two cranes, one on the northerly, 
the other on the southerly side of the rock, 
for use in hoisting supplies. There are also 
now three other places, one at the southern 
and two at the eastern side of the rock, 
where, by means of ladders and ropes, one 
may ascend. 
The only spot at the base of the rock 
which can be called a beach is below the 
northern crane, and here the keeper hauls 
up his boat and stows it among the closely 
surrounding rocks. At all other points 
the rock either rises directly from the water 
or is beset by huge masses fallen from 
the cliffs above. Hence a landing can be 
made on Bird Rock only in comparatively 
calm weather. 
* The human inhabitants of the rock are a 
keeper, his daughter, and two assistants, who 
may claim to be isolated in the most rigid in- 
terpretation of the word. During five months 
of the year, from December to April inclu- 
sive, they are usually without means of com- 
munication with the rest of the world. In 
the spring and autumn they are visited by 
the government lighthouse tender, bringing 
their supplies for the ensuing six months, 
and this is their only regular connection 
with the world of affairs. 
Barring the risk of falling over the edge 
of their circumscribed abode, one might sup- 
pose that the dwellers on this rock were far 
removed from the dangers to which beings 
surrounded by more complicated conditions 
of existence are exposed. But the history of 
the rock shows a remarkable list of disasters. 
No less than three keepers have been killed, 
and three injured, by the bursting or acci- 
dental discharge of the signal-cannon, while 
only three years ago (1896) all three keepers 
were lost in the ice while hunting the seals 
which frequent the ice-floes of the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence in early spring. The ice on 
which these men had ventured separated 
from the main field, and they were carried sea- 
ward. Two days later one of them was picked 
up in a dying condition on the coast of Cape 
Breton; the others were never heard from. 
ROCK. Bol 
The mental condition of the head keeper’s 
wife, who was left alone upon the rock, may 
be imagined. For two nights she tended the 
light. On the third day, by unusual good 
fortune, a sealing-schooner answered her 
signals for assistance. 
The isolation which makes Bird Rock a 
comparatively safe home for birds has also 
prevented it from becoming a popular resort 
for field-ornithologists. As far as the records 
go, only eight students of birds have visited 
the place. 
But if we are amazed at the number of 
birds inhabiting these islands to-day, what 
would we have thought if we could have seen 
them before they began to show the results 
of man’s warfare of extermination? 
Jacques Cartier, writing in 1555 of his 
voyages to Canadian waters, states that he 
came to islands which were “as full of birds 
as any meadow is of grass. . . . We went 
down to the lowest part of the least island, 
where we killed above a thousand of these 
godetz and apponatz. We put into our 
boats so many of them as we pleased, for in 
less than one hour we might have filled 
thirty such boats of them.” The islands 
Cartier here refers to are identified by Mr. 
F. A. Lucas as being the Bird Rocks, and 
our first account of them, therefore, deals 
with the slaughter of their feathered in- 
digenes. 
Nearly three centuries passed, however, 
before an ornithologist observed the wonders 
of Bird Rock. On June 14, 1833, Audubon, 
whose energy in exploration no ornithologist 
has ever surpassed, visited the rocks. He 
wrote in his journal: “About ten a speck 
rose on the horizon, which I was told was the 
rock; we sailed well, the breeze increased 
fast, and we neared this object apace. At 
eleven I could distinguish its top plainly 
from the deck, and thought it covered with 
snow to the depth of several feet; this ap- 
pearance existed on every portion of the flat, 
projecting shelves. Godwin [the pilot] said, 
with the coolness of a man who had visited 
this rock for ten successive seasons, that 
what we saw was not snow,—but gannets! I 
rubbed my eyes, took my spy-glass, and in 
an instant the strangest picture stood before 
me. They were birds we saw,—a mass of 
birds of such size as I never before cast my 
eyes on. The whole of my party stood as- 
tounded and amazed, and all came to the 
conclusion that such a sight was of itself 
sufficient to invite any one to come across 
the gulf to view at this season.” 
One need not be a naturalist to imagine 
