well-known effects of these species would not 
     
     have been present.“ Of the herbivores that did 
     
     occur — the caribou (few in number), the hare and 
     
     the other small mammals — it would seem that 
     
     none would have had a significant impact even at 
     
     the local level. Or putting it another way, it is 
     
     unlikely that the exclusion of any of the animals 
     
     that were present on the island would have made 
     
     any difference to either the tree species 
     
     composition or forest structure. 
     
    
   
   
    
     ECOLOGICAL ANALYSIS: BIRDS 
     
    
   
   
    
     Although there are almost as many bird records as 
     
     mammal in the French documents (at 32, just 
     
     three less) fourteen of these come from just one 
     
     recorder (La Ronde 1721) who seems to have 
     
     made a special effort to record as many bird 
     
     species as he could think of. 
     
    
   
   
    
     However, the records for the avifauna are less 
     
     useful than those for the mammalian fauna, mainly 
     
     because it is difficult to identify with certainty over 
     
     half of the birds named. Of the 19 to 21 kinds 
     
     named in the French records55 (by the way, less 
     
     than 18% of the 127 species of terrestrial bird 
     
     that are now known to occur on the island“) only 
     
     six can be identified with any certainty to the 
     
     species level (the passenger pigeon, ruffed grouse, 
     
     woodcock, common snipe, ruby-throated 
     
     hummingbird, and American robin). An additional 
     
     six can be identified to species at a high level of 
     
     probability (the bald eagle, great blue heron, great 
     
     horned owl, snow bunting, raven, and song 
     
     sparrow); another four to the level of family or 
     
     genus (the chickadees, woodpeckers, thrushes, 
     
     and owls), leaving five names of uncertain 
     
     application (e'tourneau, a/ouette, corbujeau, orto/an 
     
     qui passe, orto/an b/anc). 
     
    
   
   
    
     It is evident that three terrestrial birds in particular 
     
     received more comment than any others — the 
     
     passenger pigeon, the ruffed grouse and the 
     
     orto/an undoubtedly because all three were 
     
     considered to be game birds. The passenger 
     
    
   
   
    
     5‘ Effects such as the killing of trees by beavers and porcupines, 
     
     the flooding of forest areas through the construction of beaver 
     
     dams, and the over-browsing of tree foliage by moose. 
     
    

    
     55 Twenty-one species, if we take ‘ortolan' to refer to three different 
     
     species; nineteen, if only to one species. 
     
    

    
     56 A count from Godfrey (1954) - ignoring introductions from 
     
     Europe, sub—species, waterfowl and waders. 
     
    
   
   
    
     155 
     
    
   
   
    
     pigeon was noted as a summer visitor by La Ronde 
     
     (1721), Roma (1750) and Franquet (1751), but 
     
     apart from Roma's comment that they were ’too 
     
     abundant’ we are told nothing else about them. 
     
     The ruffed grouse (or 'partridge' (perdrix) as it was 
     
     misnamed) was mentioned by five recorders, 
     
     usually explicitly or implicitly in the context of a 
     
     game bird. They were considered abundant by 
     
     two of the recorders (La Ronde 1721 and Roma 
     
     1750), though Pichon (1760) recorded them as 
     
     abundant in one area of the island and scarce in 
     
     another. As noted above, the name orto/an seems 
     
     to have been applied to different species by 
     
     different recorders — Franquet (1751) certainly 
     
     seems to have had the snow bunting in mind. As 
     
     for the other birds, most are simply listed without 
     
     any comment. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Only a few of the recorded comments on the 
     
     avifauna are concerned with ecology or behaviour. 
     
     Pichon (1760) (for what it is worth) comments 
     
     that woodcocks were very common in the forests 
     
     along the south shore between Cape Traverse and 
     
     Port La-Joie, where they could be easily killed with 
     
     stones, whereas the grouse in the north—east of 
     
     the island ’hid themselves’, presumably in their 
     
     forest habitat. We also have from Roma (1750) an 
     
     indication of the importance of the vole to birds of 
     
     prey: he says that ‘all the birds of prey’ as well as 
     
     the raven (corbeau) and the great horned owl 
     
     (chat-huant) fed on the voles during their 
     
     outbreaks. Finally, Franquet (1751) says the 
     
     island is a place of passage for all sorts of birds — 
     
     though he especially means the waterfowl and 
     
     waders, he also implies terrestrial birds as well. 
     
    
   
   
    
     CONCLUSION 
     
    
   
   
    
     Though the number of records from the French 
     
     period on the island’s mammal and bird fauna is 
     
     limited, it has yielded valuable information on the 
     
     species composition of the island’s fauna at the 
     
     time of the first European settlement, as well as 
     
     providing some useful insights into the ecological 
     
     inter-relationships between the various species 
     
     that occurred on the island. It has served as a 
     
     useful base to which we can add the information 
     
     contained in the records of the succeeding British 
     
     period in the history of the island.