470 THE NATURAL HISTORT REVIEW. 



" Angle mager " (liook-maker) of the Sonclmor fishermen, with Lin- 

 naeus' description of Alca impennis, it seems more than probable 

 that he has confounded that bird with the Harelda glacialis of 

 modern naturalists, and the kind of evidence offered by other wit- 

 nesses as to some supposed appearances of the Gare-fowl further to 

 the north must be rejected, not merely as inconclusive, but when 

 taken in connexion with our actual knowledge as highly im- 

 probable. 



Turning now to our own island, we have an instance of what 

 has of late happened several times, namely a discovery here of like 

 nature to those already made in other countries. Last year (1864) 

 in a kitchen-midden, on the coast of Caithness, the remains of at 

 least two Gare-fowls Avere found, and it may, as in the case of Den- 

 mark, be fairly presumed from this circumstance, that in days of 

 yore, the bird was not uncommonly met with on our northern shores, 

 while its incapacity for flight, its size, and its sapidity, would of 

 course render it a much sought prize for the men of the Stone 

 period. 



Historic records of its occurrence in the British isles, do not, 

 however, date very far back. In Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages 

 and Travels (vol. iii. p. 730), in an 'Account of Hirta [better known 

 now-a-days as S. Kilda] and Eona, &c., by the Lord Eegister, Sir 

 George M'Kenzie, of Tarbat,' the writer says of the former as fol- 

 lows : — " it is incredible what number of feed fowls frequent the rocks 

 there. * * * There be many sorts of these fowls ; some of them 

 of strange shapes, among which there is one they call the gare-fowl, 

 which is bigger than a goose, and hath eggs as big, almost, as those 

 of an ostrich."* 



For a man to think his own geese swans is nothing, but for his 

 Gare-fowls to lay eggs almost as big as Ostriches', is a stretch of 

 imagination indeed, for the worthy knight of Tarbert. However, his 

 friend and brother knight. Sir Eobert Sibbald, to whom this ' Ac- 

 count ' was given, cuts it down laconically, and contents himself 

 with enumerating, in 1684, in his * Scotia Illustrata,' among the birds 

 of North Britain : — 



" Avis Gave dicta, Corvo Marino similis, Ovo maximo.'* 



* Pinkcrton gives us no clue to the date of this communication, or to the 

 source whence he reprinted it. It was clearly, however, written prior to the next 

 passage we quote. 



