Disembarking at the fishing village, which is situated on the west side of Bonaventure, we were soon in the spruce and balsam forests, which occupy all but the borders of the island, here about a mile and a half in width. The change from the turmoil and vastness of the sea to the quiet and seclusion of the forest made the previous hour’s experience seem distant and unreal. The wind which had roared through our rigging now breathed peacefully through the tree tops; the heaving, frothy sea was replaced by stable earth, wondrously carpeted with snow-white cornel and dainty twin-flowers;^{76} instead of the harsh cries of the Gannets, we heard the Ave Maria of the White-throated Sparrow. Rarely have the woods seemed so beautiful. Approaching the eastern cliffs, the trees became dwarfed and singularly malformed by the winds. Finally they disappeared altogether, and were succeeded by fields blue with iris. Never have I seen this plant so abundant. There were acres of flowers reaching to the very edge of the cliffs, where, with only a change in the tint, the blue of the iris faded into the blue of the sea. [Illustration: 76. Cornel or bunchberry.] We were now nearing the Gannets; desiring to secure a picture of a fully occupied ledge, I urged due caution, and advanced quietly to the edge of the cliff. The point was well chosen—almost directly beneath us, and about halfway down to the sea, there being a broad, rocky shelf so thickly dotted with nesting Gannets that every bird in the group was within reach of his immediately surrounding fellows.^{77} It was an astonishing picture of bird life, but only a fragment of what we had beheld from the sea. Under the circumstances, however, this fragment brought more satisfaction than had been before received from the entire Gannet colony. The 4 × 5 “Premo” was now erected, care being taken to make no move which would alarm the birds, and several exposures were made at leisure. Then changing the lens to an old “Henry Clay,” and attaching several elastics to the shutter, I prepared to make a flight picture of the birds as, at the report of my gun, they left their nests. All ready, I took firm hold of the bulb and gave the word to the captain to fire. The result may fairly be called a failure. As far as we could determine, the birds gave no evidence of hearing the shot or the others which followed, and our best efforts did not succeed in making a single Gannet leave its nest. Like Darwin’s Hawk and Moseley’s Penguins, these birds seemed happily ignorant of man and his ways. One could doubtless descend to their ledge without causing them to leave it. [Illustration: 77. A ledge of nesting Gannets. About four hundred birds are shown in this picture.]