386 Ml'. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley's Researches 



with one of the two survivors of this voyage, Daniel Joensen, in 

 1849*; and on July 25th, 1858, through the kind attention of 

 Herr Sysselmand H. Miiller, we had an interview with the other, 

 a clear-headed old man, Paul Medjord by name. The accounts 

 of these two witnesses differ from each other in no material 

 point; but it does not seem quite certain whether the rock on 

 which they landed was the Geirfugladrangr or the Geirfuglasker 

 proper. Many of the above particulars, including the exact 

 dates, which I believe have never before been published, were 

 most obligingly furnished us from the official records by Herr 

 Dahlerup, the Governor of the Fa?roes, and Herr V. Finsen, the 

 By-fogden of Reykjavik ; but Faber, in 1822, briefly mentioned 

 this massacre, and in 1839 the late Etatsraad Reinhardt t added 

 some further information, which notices have been copied into 

 various other works. 



In 1814, according to Faber {loc. cit.), seven Great Auks were 

 killed on a little skerry at Latrabjarg, on the north shore of 

 Breidifjor"Sr. I do not know any other reported instance of its 

 occurrence there or elsewhere in Iceland so far to the north. 

 Olafsen {op. cit. p. 562) gives a lengthened description of the 

 locality and the birds which frequent it, but makes no mention 

 of Alca impennis. The only notice of the place I can find besides 

 is in Mr. Metcalfe's amusing little book, just published J. This 

 gentleman tells a story to show that spiteful spirits dwell in some 

 part of the cliff, but does not suggest that they are the ghosts 

 of departed Gare-fowls. 



Faber further informs us {op. cit. p. 48) that on the 25th of 

 Jime, 1821, he started on an excursion to the Reykjanes skerries. 

 He was accompanied by a Danish merchant, a Swedish count, 

 and the latter's servant §. Of the Icelanders who were on 



* Contributions to Ornithology, 1850, [edited] by Sir William Jardine, 

 Bait., &c. Edinburgh, 1850, p. 116. 



t Kroyer's Naturhistorisk Tidsskrift, i. p. 533. 



X The Oxonian in Iceland, &c. By the Rev. Frederick Metcalfe, M.A., 

 &c. London, 1861, p. 260. 



§ I am not so fortunate as to possess a copy of Faber's other work, 

 ' Ueber das Leben der hochnordischen Viigel ' (Leipzig, 1825) ; nor have 

 I seen the paper in the ' Isis ' for 1827 (p. 633), in the latter of which I 

 am informed be gives the fullest particulars of his expedition ; I therefore 



