It is conceivable that the wearing of Gannets’ heads, or feet, or wings may some day become fashionable, but unless the demand be urgent and the price sufficient to tempt men to risk their lives, the Gannets will long continue to nest on the cliffs of Bonaventure. THE MAGDALENS From Percé to the Magdalens by sea is about a hundred and twenty miles, but lacking a proper vessel we were forced to return to Dalhousie and there take the International Railroad to Pictou, where a weekly steamer leaves for Prince Edward Island and the “Madalenes,” as the natives call them. The journey is possessed of both present and historic interest, and the hospitality for which the residents of Pictou are noted assures one of a pleasant stay in their picturesque little town. Here I met a veteran ornithologist—James McKinlay—who, although over threescore and ten and isolated from others of kindred tastes, still possesses the enthusiasm of the genuine naturalist. His collection, the greater part of which he has presented to the Pictou Academy, contains, among other birds, a Brown Pelican, a Corncrake, and a Chuck-will’s-widow—all shot in the vicinity. The Magdalen steamer is neither a yacht nor an ocean greyhound, but answers very well for the short voyage of a hundred and fifty miles across the gulf. Pictou was left at noon, and the following morning we awakened to find the steamer at anchor off an island with red sandstone cliffs, and green fields rising gently into hills clad with stunted spruce forests. This was at the southern end of the long sand bar which joins these so-called islands; and our destination, Grand Entry, near the northern end of the chain, was reached late in the afternoon. At this point we embarked in a small sailboat, and in a driving rainstorm flew before the wind across a bay two miles in width, and up an arm a mile or so in length, to the settlement of Grosse Isle, on the island of the same name. The tide was out; Black-backed Gulls were feeding on the flats, and Gannets fishing in the deeper water; Guillemots rose before the boat; a seal showed itself for a moment and disappeared—moving figures in a picture which impressed itself very vividly on my memory. A landing was made with difficulty, and a walk of nearly a mile through the scrubby spruces brought us to the home of the fisher folk, who had agreed to take us in. If Percé is isolated, Grosse Isle is in another sphere. Even the weekly steamer which plies between Pictou and the Magdalens from May to November comes no nearer than Grand Entry, and its arrival seemed a rather vague incident, made real only by the appearance of mail.