THE GARE-FOWL AXD ITS niSTORTA:N-S. 475 



This specimen, when dead, passed into Dr. Eurkitt's possession, 

 and by liim was liberally, presented to the Museum of Trinity Col- 

 lege, Dublin; where, the last time we saw it, it was carefully 

 enshrined in the professorial sanctum, in company with Brian Bern's 

 harp, and some other palladia of the sister island. 



It was afterwards ascertained, Thompson tells us, that a second 

 Alea impennis was procured on the same coast, about the same time 

 as the one just noticed, but, falling into the hands of ignorant 

 persons, it was not preserved ; and he adds that he has very little 

 doubt that two more were seen in Belfast Bay, in 1845 — rather an 

 important date as we shall see by-and-bye — by a fowler there, in 

 w^hose accuracy of observation that deeply-regretted naturalist places 

 much confidence. 



If we have unpardouably intruded upon our render's patience 

 with all these details, we must cite as our excuse, that the most 

 recent of the papers at the head of our article concludes by 

 saying :— 



" The more recent testimonies of the Garfowl, in the N. "W". 

 coasts of Scotland, may be seen in Macaulat, ' History of Kilda,' 

 176^! ; and in Sibbald, ' Scotia lUustrata,' 1684." ! ! 



Before proceeding to dwell upon the more northern and western 

 localities for Aha impennis, we may as well mention here that it 

 seems to have been met with in modern times not unfrequently on 

 the French side of the English Channel. Degland, writing in 1849, 

 and after, by the way, making the singular assertion that " il se 

 trouvait en assez grande nombre il y a une quinzaine d'annees aux 

 Orcades ; mais le ministre presbyterien dans le Mainland, en offrant 

 une forte prime aux personnes qui lui apportaient cet oiseau, a ete la 

 cause de sa destruction sur ces iles," (Orn. Eur. ii. p. 529), goes on 

 to say that forty or fifty years ago three were killed near Cher- 

 bourg,* and quotes from M. Hardy's ' Catalogue des Oiseaux de la 

 Seine- Inferieure,' that two have occurred in the month of April in 

 as many difierent years near Dieppe. One was killed, the other 

 found dead. 



In the Eseroes the ' Gorfuglir " — as it was called — was formerly 

 common. Sysselmand Milller, writing in 1862, thinks it was sixty 



* One of these, Degland says, M^as in De Lamotte's collection. This is highly 

 improbable, for the specimen in that collection, which now belongs to the town of 

 Abbeville, like most of those at present existing in museums, was procured from 

 Copenhagen. 



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