THE GREAT AUK 95 



to be regretted when we bear in mind that it was 

 absolutely avoidable and unnecessary, and was in 

 no remote way due to those economic and industrial 

 changes which have deprived so many other species 

 of a home. Here in the present case we find no 

 invasion by civilisation of favourite haunts, no 

 destruction for the sake of improvement of time- 

 honoured breeding-grounds, no increase of popula- 

 tion to exterminate timid creatures, but simply 

 a cruel and wanton massacre of poor helpless and 

 defenceless birds for the sake of commercial greed 

 and gain that really could have had very little 

 value. The extermination that went on in Iceland 

 in an era of greater intellectual activity has even 

 less to defend it ; for there the latest survivors of 

 the Great Auk were captured to supply various 

 scientific institutions in Europe, so that literally its 

 extirpation was countenanced and approved by 

 and was undertaken in the name of Science ! There 

 was no reason whatever why the Great Auk should 

 not have survived and even flourished in our own 

 day. It is true the bird was comparatively help- 

 less, but its inability to escape from enemies only 

 prevailed during the nesting season, when the poor 

 bird was engaged in duties that should have 

 ensured for it immunity from harm. At all other 



