ALCIN^. 



697 



THE GREAT AUK. 



Alca impennis, Linnteus. 



This species, also called the Gare-fowl, is now supposed to be 

 extinct, and with good reason, for since 1844, when the latest 

 examples were obtained off Iceland, the bird has been vainly, though 

 assiduously, sought. It formerly inhabited the shores of Iceland, the 

 Faeroes, and the Scandinavian coast of the North Sea ; while its 

 presence in the Outer Hebrides was recorded as long ago as 1684, 

 though the bird had evidently become very rare in Scottish waters 

 by the beginning of the present century. An adult male — now in 

 the British Museum, and from which the above illustration is taken 

 — was obtained by Bullock in 1813, from Papa Westray in the 

 Orkneys; in August 1821 or 1822, Fleming received a live bird 

 which had been captured on St. Kilda ; and in May 1S34 another 

 — now in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin — was taken 

 alive at the mouth of Waterford Harbour. No other British 

 specimens are in existence ; but Mr. Henry Evans, during his visits 



