Seeing that Sable Island has no trees on the branches of which nests may be built, it follows naturally that its winged inhabitants are altogether of the water-fowl and sea-bird variety. All over the sides and tops of the sand-hills, which rise to the height of thirty, forty, or fifty feet, the gulls, gannets, terns, and other aquatic birds scrape together their miserable apologies for nests, and hatch out their ugly little squab chicks, making such a to-do about the business that the whole air is filled with their chattering, clanging, and screaming. They are indeed very disagreeable neighbours; for besides the horrid din they are ceaselessly making, they are the most untidy, not to say filthy, of housekeepers. After they have occupied their bird-barracks, as their nesting-places might appropriately be called, for a few weeks, the odour the wind bears from that direction could never be mistaken for one of those spicy breezes which are reputed to "blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle." Then they have not the redeeming quality of being fit to eat; for unless one were on the very edge of starvation, one taste of their flesh, rank with suggestions of fish and train-oil, would be sufficient to banish all appetite. They have one or two good qualities. They are brave; for at the peril of their lives they will dauntlessly attack any rash intruder upon their domains, swooping down upon him with sharp cries and still sharper beaks. Their movements illustrate the poetry of motion, as they come sailing grandly in from the ocean spaces, and circle about their own particular hillock in glorious dips and curves and mountings upward, that fill the human observer with longing and envy. Much more satisfactory, however, are the black duck, sheldrake, plover, curlew, and snipe, which nest by uncounted thousands in the dense grass that girts the fresh-water ponds, and afford dainty dishes for the table. It is easy work to make a fine bag on a favourable day, and grand sport may be had by any one who knows how to handle a double-barrel. Many are the interesting stories connected with bird life on Sable Island, but a single one, and that the oddest of them all, must suffice. I give it upon the unimpeachable authority of Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin. About forty years or more ago a lot of rabbits were sent there as an experiment. The idea was, if they prospered, to furnish the human inhabitants of the island with a pleasant variety from the salt junk which generally adorned their tables. The experiment succeeded admirably. Bunny found the firm, dry sands just the thing for his burrows, while the abundant wild pea and other herbage furnished unstinted food for his prolific brood. But one fateful day in spring—a dark day in the annals of rabbitdom—a big snowy owl, that had somehow lost his bearings and been driven out to sea by a westerly gale, dropped wearily upon the island to rest his tired pinions.