394 Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley's Researches 



no Gare-fowls could be found. In 1858 Mr. Wolley and I re- 

 mained at Kyrkjuvogr, with two short intervals^ from May 21st 

 to July 14th. Our chief object was to reach not only Eldey, but 

 the still more distant Geirfugladrangr, on which, probably, no 

 man has set foot since the Swedish Count, in 1821, with so 

 much difficulty reached it. Boats and men were engaged, and 

 stores for the trip laid in; but not a single opportunity oc- 

 curred when a landing would have been practicable. I may 

 say that it was with heavy hearts we witnessed the season 

 wearing away without giving us the wished- for chance. The 

 following summer was equally tempestuous, and no voyage could 

 be attempted. Last year (1860), on the 13th of June, Vilhjal- 

 mur successfully landed on Eldey, but he found no trace of a 

 Great Auk, and the weather prevented his proceeding to the 

 outer island. Later in the year a report reached Copenhagen, 

 which was subsequently published in the newspaper ' Flyve- 

 posten' (No. 273), to the effect that two eggs of this bird had 

 been taken on one of the skerries and sold in England for fabu- 

 lous prices. Through the kind interest of several friends, I 

 think I am in a position to assert that the statement is utterly 

 false. The last accounts I have received from Iceland, under 

 date of June the 20th in the present year (1861), make no 

 mention of any expedition this summer. I am not very san- 

 guine of a successful result, but I trust yet to be the means of 

 ascertaining whether, at the sinking of the true Geirfuglasker, 

 some of the colony, deprived of their w^onted haunt, may not 

 have shifted their quarters to the Geirfugladrangr, as others, we 

 presume, did to Eldey, and to this end I have taken and shall 

 continue to take the necessary steps. 



But to sum up the account of Mr. WoUey^s personal re- 

 earches. The very day after our arrival at Kyi'kjuvogr he 

 picked up from a heap of blown sand, two or three birds' wing- 

 bones {humeri)*. He was at once struck with their likeness 

 to the figure illustrating Professor Steenstrup's paper — that 

 valuable paper to w^hich I first of all referred, and which has 



* They were trom the side of a channel blown out by the wind from a 

 heap formerly drifted there, such as in the eastern counties of England 

 would be called a " Sand-gall." 



