If you will take your atlas and turn to the map of Canada, you may, by looking very carefully, discover a small spot in the Atlantic Ocean almost due east from Nova Scotia, and close beside the sixtieth parallel of longitude. This little lonely spot is Sable Island, There it lies in the midst of the waves, a long, low bank of gray sand without a single tree upon it from end to end; nay, not so much as a bush behind which a baby might play hide-and-seek. It seems, therefore, at first sight to be one of the most unfavourable places in the world for the study of either birds or beasts. Yet, strange as it may seem, this island, which is now but twenty miles long, and at its greatest breadth but a mile and a half wide—once it was quite double that size—has a wonderfully interesting history of its own, of which not the least entertaining chapter is that relating to its furry and feathered inhabitants.
Although when first viewed from the sea Sable Island appears to be nothing better than a barren sand-bank, on closer acquaintance it reveals inside its sloping beaches vales and meadows that in summer-time seem like bits out of a Western prairie. There are green, grassy knolls, and enchanting dells with placid ponds in their midst; and if you only come at the right time and stay long enough, you may gather pink roses, blue lilies, China asters, wild pea, gay golden-rod, and, what is still better, strawberries, blueberries, and cranberries in bountiful profusion.
Our concern at present, however, is not with the fruits and flowers, but with the fur and feathers of this curious place.
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.