®ije |irt#ij Jlaturali^t. 



VOLUME VIM. 



THE GREAT AUK, ONCE AN IRISH BIRD. 



BY R. J. USSHKR. 



[Plate i.] 



Since my notice in the Irish Naturalist (1897, p. 20S), I have 

 made other visits to the same kitchen-middens, resulting in 

 additions to my former finds of Great Auks' bones. These 

 were all found strewn about on or near the old surface where 

 this cropped up, among the bones of domestic animals and 

 fowls and of Red Deer, of which many pieces of the antlers 

 were also obtained. There were numerous burned stones, 

 and charcoal in layers, and great quantities of shells of edible 

 species, often very large, limpets, oysters, mussels, cockles, &c. 

 I have now seventeen bones of A lea impennis, which have either 

 been determined by Dr. Gadow or correspond, with specimens 

 that he has pronounced upon — eight coracoids which he 

 assigns to six individuals, five humeri, belonging to three 

 individuals, one tibia, right and left metatarsals and a portion 

 of the pelvis. Aright and a left humerus were fo:ind close 

 together. In some of the bones the outer surface is well 

 preserved, but in others it is much worn down, and the bones 

 split from time and exposure. That my superficial searches 

 among the sandhills, where but little of the old surface is now 

 exposed, should have resulted in finding the remains of at least 

 six Great Auks strewn about, suggests that these birds must 

 have been used for food in somenumbers. To obtain them access 

 was probably available to some breeding-place of the species 

 on the neighbouring coast ; so that when Professor Newton 

 remarked that the Great Auk obtained near Waterford Harbour 

 in 1834 may have been revisiting the home of its forefathers, 

 he possibly described what took place. 



A 



