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the interior, as a sanctuary.... It would perhaps be better to have two regions set apart, one near the Saguenay country and another nearer the Atlantic coast. We have, however, to consider the fact that sanctuaries will be of no value unless they are well guarded. In the case of the birds the conditions are bad; the destruction on the Labrador is horrible to contemplate. The outer islands were scoured by crews from foreign vessels, and whole loads of eggs carried off. There has not been much of this done in recent years. There can he no doubt that, if certain of the larger and less inhabited islands were set apart, and carefully protected, the birds would return to them. I believe that owing to the constant way in which the birds--eider ducks, certain of the divers, gulls, &c., were disturbed, on their natural and original nesting places, they have changed their habits; and, instead of nesting on the islands and by the sea, they have moved to the shores of the interior lakes. You see flocks of young birds in the fall; they have come from the interior, as they were not hatched out on the islands as they used to be. The destruction of geese and curlew does not take place on the Labrador. These birds are not disturbed on their nesting grounds; but, to the south and west when they are passing to their winter haunts. Geese are found feeding on the hill-sides, on the most distant and northern islands--as far north as any of our explorers have gone. The first birds Sverdrup met as he was coming south, in the early spring, were wild geese. These birds are not disturbed on their breeding grounds. The Eskimo do not meddle with them. In the same way caribou are found feeding about the shores of Hudson bay and strait. Like the geese, they feed on berries about the hill sides. I have shot them at the mouth of Churchill river, and near cape Digges in August, when they were very fat--so fat that it is said that, on falling on hard ground, they would burst open; though this did not actually happen in my case. I certainly think that it would be a grand thing to have certain groups of islands--or even certain sections of coast--set apart as bird sanctuaries. Your paper deals entirely with conditions in Labrador. There is, however, anothe
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