6 The Irish Naturalist. [January, 



side from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay, and on the American 

 side from Greenland to Virginia. He says further that the 

 positively known breeding-places are few in number, those 

 where the bird bred abundantly being the Garefowl Skerries 

 off the coast of Iceland and Funk Island, on the Newfound- 

 land coast To use the words of Mr. Lucas, the Great Auk 

 was " slaughtered out of existence " in the cruel way described 

 in Mr. Ussher's quotation from Lady Blake's paper; and it is 

 now believed to be extinct, the extinction taking place about 

 1840, almost coincidenth in Europe and America. Mr. 

 Symmington Grieve gives a summary of existing remains of 

 the Great Auk or Garefowl. 1 



Skins, . . . . . 80 or 82 



Skeletons, more or less complete, . 23 ,, 24 



Detached bones, . 862 ,, 874 



Physiological preparations, . . 2 „ 3 



Eggs, . . . . 71 „ 72 



Ballyinena. 



THE ESKERS OF IRELAND. 



In Natural Science for September and October, 1898, there appears a 

 well-written contribution on the subject of Irish Eskers from the pen 

 of Dr. Thomas Fitzpatrick, of St. Ignatius' College, Galway. The paper 

 consists chiefly of an account of the various theories put forward to 

 explain the formation and distribution of these puzzling deposits ; but 

 the writer has personal acquaintance with many of our best examples of 

 eskers, and his comments on the statements and suggestions of Jukes 

 and Kinaban in Ireland, Geikie and Ramsay in Great Britain, and 

 Hummel and Hoist in Scandinavia, have therefore a value of their own. 

 Dr. Fitzpatrick distinctly leans towards Hum in el's glacier-tunnel theory ; 

 but he considers that the fact of the distribution of eskers in Ireland 

 being almost restricted to the Central Plain is a point in favour of 

 Kinahan's Esker-sea hypothesis. Curiously enough, no reference is 

 made throughout the paper to the work of Winchell, Warren, Upham, 

 Stone, Carvill Lewis, G. F. Wright, J. C. Russell, and other American 

 geologists who have thrown so much light on the subject ; and a more 

 unnatural omission is found as regards Prof. Sollas' important Paper 

 and map showing the distribution of eskers in Ireland'-— the most sug- 

 gestive contribution to the literature of the subject which has yet 

 e.nanated from this country. 



1 Additional Notes on the Great Auk or Garefowl. Transactivtis Edinburgh 

 Field A a uraliit and Microscopical Society, July, 1898 

 2 Sci. Tians. K.D.S. (2) v., 110. 13, 1896. 



