in Iceland respecting the Gar e- fowl. 399 



manner. I have already mentioned several persons from whom 

 we obtained valuable intelligence, and unjust as it may appear 

 to the rest, I must forbear from naming more. The chief au- 

 thorities both in church and state afforded us every facility, and 

 all orders and degrees of men and women followed their exam- 

 ple. From the Governor surrounded by the comforts of modern 

 civilization through every grade to the unhappy leper, dwelling, 

 as his ancestors may have done centuries ago, amid filth and 

 scarcity, we received an amount of attention, of which it is diffi- 

 cult to express the full value without seeming guilty of exag- 

 geration. Alas that it is left to me only to make this state- 

 ment ! To all those concerned, then, I have to return our 

 acknowledgments, and to no one more than to our honest and 

 intelligent guide and interpreter Geir Zoega of Reykjavik, who for 

 more than two months was our constant and willing attendant. 



Whether the Gare-fowl be already extirpated or still existing in 

 some unknown spot, it is clear that its extinction, if not already 

 accomplished, must speedily follow on its rediscovery. I have 

 therefore to beseech all who may be connected with the matter to 

 do their utmost that such rediscovery should be turned to the best 

 account. If in this point we neglect our opportunities, future 

 naturalists will justly reproach us. The mere possession of a 

 few skins or eggs, more or less, is as nothing. Our science de- 

 mands something else — that we shall transmit to posterity a less 

 perishable inheritance. I have to urge, in no spirit of partiality, 

 but purely in the cause of knowledge, the claims of our own 

 country in this event. Our metropolis possesses the best-stocked 

 vivarium in the world. An artist residing among us is un- 

 questionably the most skilful animal draughtsman of this or any 

 other period. By common consent the greatest comparative ana- 

 tomist of the day is the naturalist who superintends the nation's 

 zoological collection. Surely no more fitting repository for the 

 very last of the Great Auks could be found than the Gardens 

 of the Zoological Society of London, where living they would be 

 immortalized by Mr. Wolf's pencil, and dead be embalmed in a 

 memoir by Professor Owen's pen. 

 Elveden, August 8, 1861. 



