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The American Eider 
By ALFRep M. BaILey 
The rugged shores of the St. Lawrence and the Newfoundland 
Labrador are the homes of many water birds; quaint sea fowl nest upon 
the precipitous ledges or burrow among crannies of inoss covered boulders, 
while the dense thickets of spruce and firs, gnarled and twisted by the 
winter gales, offer havens for other forms. Audubon, the great naturalist, 
worked along the Canadian Labrador one hundred years ago and he round 
a wealth of bird life to reproduce on canvas, and among the paintings 
which he brought back were those of the American Eider. 
In the years which have followed, the Eider were subjected to heavy 
shooting by hunters, and to raids upon their nesting grounds by fisher- 
men, until their numbers were woefully few. Fortunately, the Canadian 
government established sanctuaries that the birds might breed unmolested, 
and with the aid of closed seasons, the Eiders were saved from exter- 
mination. 
During the past summer it was my privilege to work along the Cana- 
dian Labrador, making a photographic record of the interesting bird life 
tor the film library of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. Prior to the 
work on the “north shore’ with Dr. Harrison F. Lewis, Chief Federal 
Migratory Bird Officer of Quebec and Ontario, however, I had been 
invited by Dr. D. A. Déry, of the Provancher Society of Natural History, 
to visit their sanctuaries on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, near 
Trois Pistoles, Quebec. : 
I joined Dr. Dery in the interesting little French settlement of Trois 
Pistoles late in June; the town is typical of the villages of the region, with 
neat dwelling places extending along the main highways, with carefully 
kept fields extending beyond the houses. “The precipitous shores of the 
St. Lawrence rise abruptly and at low tide, great water worn boulders 
are left stranded on the flats. 
‘There were many land birds to be seen when we walked through 
the felds or among the fragrant conifers but at that season of the year 
they were nesting and were reluctant to make their presence known. 
Upon the river, however, we could see many water fowl—gulls, terns, 
herons, and the eider which I hoped to photograph. 
The Provancher Society is an organization which has accomplished 
real results in conservation. Near Trois Pistoles are three islands, a 
large wooded one, L’I]le Aux Basques, used by the Basques in the 1600’s 
as a place to try out whale oil (the remains of their furnaces are evident), 
and two small, rocky islets a few miles down river where the Herring 
Gulls and Eider nest. Water birds have used these islands as breeding 
places ‘“‘as long as man remembers,” but unfortunately, they have been 
