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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Ecia OF THE Great Auk. 



The great auk's ecp, of which a natural-size representation is given in the accompanying flsnre, 

 was recently sold at auction in England for £225 ; this is the highest price ever given for a single 

 egg at any auction in England. This one was bought by its late owner, in 1851, for £18. Of the 

 sixty-seven recorded specimens of this ^gg, forty-four are in Great Britain. Some two hundred and 

 fifty years ago, vessels fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland made great use of these birds for pro- 

 visions. They were plentiful in that vicinity, and when found on land could be captured wholesale 

 ty simply placing a plank from the shore to a boat, up which the auks could be driven. Having no 

 power of flight, the species gradually disappeared from America, and from Europe not long after, 

 the last two specimens of which there is trustworthy evidence having been killed in Iceland 

 in 1844. 



bodies long ago crumbled away, yielding np the odor tliey may 

 once have possessed. 



Between the central and southern rise are numerous shallow 

 pools of rain-water, rendered brackish by the driving spray, but 

 still fresh enough to be drunk in case of emergency. Just such 

 an emergency befell a party of eggers some twenty years ago 

 when their schooner was forced away by stress of weather, leaving 

 the men who had landed to subsist for eleven days on a varied 

 diet of eggs, birds, and brackish water. 



On the western portion of the southernmost swell of rock lie 

 the former breeding-grounds of the great auk, now mapped out in 

 rich green by the rank vegetation covering this, the soil-clad part 

 of the island. This section alone was accessible to the flightless 

 garefowl, and here in days gone by the great auk scrambled 

 through the breakers and over the slippery rocks, which north 

 and south slope into the sea, to reach its nesting-place. Here, to- 

 day, its bones lie buried in the shallow soil, every weathered slab 

 of granite marking the resting-place of some ill-fated bird. The 

 industrious puffins, whose labors have everywhere honey-combed 

 the ground, play the part of resurrectionists, and the entrance to 



