GARE-FO WL 307 



stutied skin is now in the British Museum/ while its mate had been 

 killed before his arrival. None have been seen there since. As to 

 the Hebrides, St. Kilda is the only locality recorded for it, and 

 there but two examples are believed to have been taken during 

 the present century, one being a living bird given in 1821 by Mr. 

 Maclellan of Glass to Fleming, who not being aware of the par- 

 ticulars of its captru'e, erroneously recorded them (Edinh. Phil. 

 Journ. X. p. 96). These have now been ascertained. The second 

 was Idlled about 1840.^ That the Gare-fowl was not plentiful in 

 either group of islands is sufficiently obvious, as also is the im- 

 possibility of its continuing to breed "up to the year 1830." 



But mistakes like these are not confined to British authors. 

 As on the death of an ancient hero myths gathered round his 

 memory as quickly as clouds round the setting sun, so have stories, 

 probable as well as impossible, accumulated over the true history 

 of this species, and it behoves the conscientious naturalist to exer- 

 cise more than common caution in sifting the truth from the large 

 mass of error. Amei-icans at one time assei'ted that the specimen 

 which belonged to Audubon (now at Vassar College) was obtained 

 by him on the banks of Newfoundland, though there was Macgilli- 

 vray's distinct statement {Brit. Birds, v. p. 359) that Audubon 

 procured it in London. The account given by Degland {Orn. 

 Ewop. ii. p. 529) in 1849, and repeated in the last edition of his 

 work by M. Gerbe, of its extinction in Orkney, is so manifestly 

 absm'd that it deserves to be quoted in full : — " II se trouvait en 

 assez grand nombre il y a mie quinzaine d'ann^es aux Orcades ; 

 mais le ministre presbyt6rien dans le Mainland, en offrant une 

 forte prime aux personnes qui lui apportaient cet oiseau, a et6 

 cause de sa destruction sur ces iles." The same author claims the 

 species as a visitor to the shores of France on the testimony of 

 Hardy (Annuaire Nonnand, 1841, p. 298), which he grievously 

 misquotes both in his own work and in another place {Naumannia, 



^ Bullock's own accouut, all lie ever published on the subject, appeared in 

 1814 {Companion to the London Museum,, ed. 16, pp. 75, 76), and is as follows: 

 " Of this rare and noble bird, we have no account of any having been killed on 

 the shores of Britain, except this specimen, for upwards of one hundred years. 

 It was taken at Papa Westra in Orkney, to the rocks of which it had resorted for 

 several years, in the summer of 1S13, and was finely preserved and sent to me by 

 Miss Trail of that island. ... I had the pleasure of examining this curious bird 

 in its native element ; it is wholly incapable of flight, but so expert a diver that 

 every effort to shoot it was ineffectual." Fuller details will be found in Messrs. 

 Buckley and Hai-vie-Brown's Vertebrate Fauna of Orkney (pp. 245-257). I have 

 reason to believe that the breeding -place of this last pair was on the Holm 

 of Papa Westray, though the survivor was killed on the main island of that 

 name. 



- For the whole story see Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley's Vertebrate 

 Fauna of the Outer Hebrides (pp. 158-160). 



