THE HOME OF THE GREAT AUK. 463 



tliey are less exposed to the action of the weather, so that, con- 

 trary to what might have been expected, the more recently killed 

 birds are the poorest for anatomical purposes. 



These Alcine remains, if one may judge from the brief accounts 

 of the few visits made to Funk Island, are rapidly deteriorating. 

 Thus, in 1863, a party of guano-seekers came upon four nearly en- 

 tire, dried-up bodies ; while, in 1874, Prof. Milne secured in half 

 an hour bones representing fifty individuals from which four 

 more or less complete skeletons were reconstructed. 



In 1887 our party passed the better part of two busy days in 

 the work of excavating bones of the great auk ; and, although the 

 material secured represents hundreds of individuals, it may not 

 make more than a dozen skeletons, and these not all absolutely 

 perfect. 



So difficult is it to procure certain bones in a good state of pres- 

 ervation, that the collection of the United States National Muse- 

 um contains but a single perfect sternum, and one nearly perfect 

 pelvis. Twenty-five years have elapsed since the " mummies " 

 were secured ; and while it is quite possible that others may yet be 

 exhumed, it will be either by rare good fortune or an unlimited 

 amount of digging, for, in the hope of coming upon a " mummy," 

 many holes were sunk quite to the bed-rock, but without success. 

 Curiously enough, these bones rarely bear any mark to indicate 

 that the birds were killed by stick or knife, a fact which caused 

 Prof. Milne to remark that this " leads to the supposition that the 

 birds may have died peacefully." Birds that die peacefully, how- 

 ever, seem to have a habit of making away with their skeletons, 

 and on Funk Island there are few bones to be found of any bird 

 save the great auk.* 



Even in the immense guano deposits of the Chincha Islands, 

 where the perfect dryness of the soil is unusually favorable to the 

 preservation of inhumed specimens, bird remains are of rare oc- 

 currence. 



Some of the crania, too, found on Funk Island, bear fractures 

 that must have been caused by a heavy blow, and one specimen 

 met with had evidently come to its death from the stroke of a 

 knife. Prof. Milne's second surmise, that the bones " were the 

 remains of some great slaughter, when the birds had been killed, 

 parboiled, and despoiled only of their feathers ; after which they 

 were thrown in a heap," is undoubtedly correct. Not only is the 

 conjecture borne out by current tradition, and by the intermingled 

 condition of the skeletons, but by the distorted appearance of 

 many bones, which, like the ribs, pelvis, and wish-bone, would be 

 most easily affected by pressure. 



* Since this was written I have had time to examine the material more carefully, and 

 find that a larsre number of the crania are fractured. 



