May, 1896.] 121 



THK GREAT AUK (ALCA IMPENNIS) AS AN IRISH 



BIRD. 



BY G. K. H. BARRETT- HAM I I^TON, B.A. 



So little is known of the past occurrences or status in Ireland 

 of the Great Auk, that I think no apology is needed for 

 bringing to the notice of readers of the Irish Naturalist the 

 statement of Mr. W. J. Knowles in his ** Third Report on the 

 Pre-historic Remains from the Sandhills of the Coasts of 

 Ireland"^ that he had obtained on the Antrim coast bones 

 which had been identified by Mr. E. T. Newton, of the 

 Geological Survey, as those of the Great Auk. These bones 

 were obtained in the sandhills of Whitepark Bay, Co. Antrim, 

 in conjunction with human remains which Mr. Knowles 

 believes to be those of the earliest Neolithic inhabitants of 

 Ireland. In accumulations of the same age were found bones 

 of the Horse, and of the Dog or Wolf (whether wild or domesti- 

 cated is uncertain), as well as remains of geese, ducks, and 

 gulls. Mr. Knowles remarks that " from the number of bones 

 [of the Great Auk] which have been found, it must have been 

 a common inhabitant of the North of Ireland at the time when 

 the people of the Stone Age occupied Whitepark Bay and 

 other parts of the coast." In a previous paper^ Mr. Knowles 

 recorded the finding, in the same locality, of two humeri of 

 the Great Auk, besides bones oi Bos longifrons, Cervuselaphus, 

 Sheep or Goat, Fox, Pig, a small goose, a small gull, and cod. 

 This statement is of such great interest, not only to Irish 

 ornithologists, but to ornithologists in general, that it is a pity 

 that it should be hidden away in a paper which deals with 

 a subject other than natural histor3^ 



The only localities given by Professor Newton^ where bones 

 of the Great Auk have been found are in the kitchen-middens 

 of Denmark, and in similar deposits in Caithness and Oronsay, 

 and in a cave on the coast of Durham. The Irish locality, 

 therefore, makes an interesting addition to our knowledge of 

 the distribution of this bird in past times. Mr. Knowles 

 points out that the " old surfaces of the sandhills, with their 

 shells, broken bones, and implements, are really kitchen- 



* Froc. R.I.A. (3), vol. iii*, No. 4, pp. 650-663 (Dec, 1895). 



^Proc. RJ.A. (3), vol. i., No. 5 (1891). 



' " Dictionary of Birds," article " Extermination," p. 220. 



A 



