From his pilot, Godwin, Audubon secured some information concerning the Gannets that then nested on the top of the Rock. He writes: “The whole surface is perfectly covered with nests, placed about two feet apart, in such regular order that you may look through the lines as you would look through those of a planted patch of sweet potatoes or cabbages. The fishermen who kill these birds to get their flesh for codfish bait ascend in parties of six or eight, armed with clubs; sometimes, indeed, the party comprises the crews of several vessels. As they reach the top, the birds, alarmed, rise with a noise like thunder, and fly off in such a hurried, fearful confusion as to throw each other down, often falling on each other until there is a bank of them many feet high. The men strike them down and kill them until fatigued or satisfied. Five hundred and forty have been thus murdered in one hour by six men. The birds are skinned with little care, and the flesh cut off in chunks; it will keep fresh about a fortnight. So great is the destruction of these birds annually that their flesh supplies the bait for upward of forty fishing boats which lie close to Bryon Island, each summer.” This slaughter was evidently attended by some danger, for not only did the sitting birds bite viciously, but old fishermen in the Magdalens state that if the invader of the Gannets’ domain on the summit of the Rock should have happened to be caught in a rush of stampeded birds, he could with difficulty have avoided being carried off the edge of the cliff. In concluding his description of the Rock, Audubon says: “No man who has not seen what we have this day can form the least idea of the impression the sight made on our minds.” One need not be a naturalist, therefore, to realize the depth of his disappointment when the pilot told him that the wind was too high to permit them to land on the Rock. However, they did not leave without at least making an attempt. A boat was launched, manned by the pilot, two sailors, Audubon’s son John, and Tom Lincoln, for whom Lincoln’s Finch, discovered subsequently in Labrador, was named; but after an hour’s absence they returned without having made a landing, and the increasing force of the wind compelled them to continue their voyage to the northward. Apparently the first naturalist to set foot on Bird Rock was Dr. Henry Bryant, of Boston, who landed there June 23, 1860. This was before the days of the lighthouse, and Dr. Bryant reached the top of the Rock only after a climb which he characterizes as both “difficult and dangerous.” In addition to the Gannets, which he found resting on the ledges on the face of the Rock, he found these birds nesting over the entire northerly half of the summit, and after measuring the surface occupied by them, he estimated that this one colony alone contained no less than one hundred thousand birds, while the number living on the sides of the Rock and Little Bird he placed at fifty thousand.