30 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



The Great Auk was the most powerful and 

 swiftest diving and swimjning bird in North 

 America. It had to be, as it could not fly. In 

 order to survive it must be fast enough not only 

 to pursue and overtake the swift-swimming fish 

 in their native element, but also active enough 

 to escape sharks and other predatory fish that 

 otherwise might have exterminated it. Also it 

 was obliged to follow the smaller migratory fish 

 southward in winter and northward in spring. 



It has been pictured often among the icebergs, 

 but it was not a bird of the Arctic regions and 

 was not found within the Arctic Qrcle. It is 

 believed to have inhabited southern Greenland, 

 but that was centuries ago when the climate of 

 Greenland probably was warmer than it is now. 

 In primitive times, when man was a savage, the 

 Auk was safe upon its island home in the raging 

 sea, which men in their frail canoes visited rarely 

 and in small numbers ; but civilized man, coming 

 in large companies in ships that sailed the seven 

 seas, armed with firearms, brought extermina- 

 tion to all flightless birds which came under his 

 notice, and so the Great Auk was one of the first 

 of the North American birds to become extinct 

 in the nineteenth century, the century that will 

 always be noted for its great destruction of birds 

 and mammals at the hand of man. 



The Great Auk had been known in Europe 

 for centuries when it was first discovered in 

 North America. This was in 1497 or 1498, when 

 adventurous French fishermen began fishing on 

 the banks of Newfoundland. The birds were 

 taken there in such enormous numbers that it 

 was unnecessary to provision the vessels, as the 

 fleet could secure all the fresh meat and eggs 

 needed by visiting the bird islands. Jacques 

 Cartier, on his first voyage to Newfoundland in 

 1534, visited an " Island of Birds" which, from 

 the course and distance sailed from Buena Vista, 

 must have been what is now known as Funk 

 Island, the last breeding place of the Great Auk 

 in America, where the crews filled two boats 

 with the birds in "less than half an hour'" and 

 every ship salted down five or six barrelfuls. 

 He also found the Great Auk on the ^Magdalen 

 Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The bird 

 became known among the French fishermen as 

 the Pingonin (Penguin). There were at least 

 three Penguin islands about Newfoundland and 

 another near the tip of the peninsula of Nova 

 Scotia, while numerous birds apparently sum- 



mered at the head of Buzzards Bay and about 

 Cape Cod. 



The Auk migrated from Labrador to Florida. 

 It was common at Nahant, Alass., and about 

 the islands in Massachusetts Bay in the early 

 years of the nineteenth century and was taken 

 now and then near Plymouth, but had disap- 

 peared at that time from the upper end of Buz- 

 zards Bay. When Audubon visited Labrador in 

 1832, he was told that fishermen still took great 

 numbers from an island off the coast of New- 

 foundland, but, from all accounts, it seems prob- 

 able that the bird was extirpated on the coasts 

 of North America before 1840. Apparently the 

 Great Auk was destroyed in America before it 

 was extirpated in Europe, where the last recorded 

 specimen was taken, off Iceland, in 1844. 



Its destruction was accomplished first by the 

 demand for the eggs and flesh for victualing 

 fishermen and settlers, next by the demand for 

 the feathers, and last by unrestricted shooting. 

 When the supply of eider-down and feathers for 

 feather beds and coverlets gave out, about 1760, 

 because of the destruction of the breeding fowl 

 along the coast of Labrador, some of the feather 

 hunters turned to the Penguin islands off the 

 coast of Newfoundland. Cartwright said ( 1775) 

 that several crews of men lived all summer on 

 Funk Island, killing the birds for their feathers ; 

 that the destruction was incredible ; and that this 

 was the only island that was left for them to 

 breed upon. Nevertheless the species continued 

 more or less numerous about the shores of New- 

 foundland until about 1823 and then gradually 

 disappeared before continuous persecution. Dr. 

 F. A. Lucas, who visited Funk Island in 1878, 

 found such enormous numbers of the bones of 

 this species that he concluded that " millions '' 

 must have died there. Today there are about 

 eighty mounted specimens in existence and not 

 many over 70 eggs preserved in museums and 

 collections. 



This Auk was readily alarmed by a noise, as 

 its hearing was very keen, but it was not wary 

 if approached silently. When on land it stood 

 upright or rested on its breast, and its locomotion 

 was slow and difficult, so that it might be easily 

 overtaken and killed with a club. In the water, 

 however, it was so swift that a boat propelled 

 by six oars could not overtake one. It is be- 

 lieved to have fed mainly upon fish, but its habits 

 never were studied and described, and, therefore, 

 they are unknown. Edward Howe Forbush. 



