476 THE NATURAL HISTOET EEVIEW. 



years since the last was killed (Yid. Meddel. Nat. For. 2 ser. vol. iv. 

 p. 58) there, but we believe one or more have been seen later, 

 though the precise year is not to be ascertained. Olaf Worm, in 

 1655, describes how that he possessed three specimens of the bird, 

 one of which he kept alive at Copenhagen for some months : — 



" Ex Feroensibus Insulis delata ad me erat avis, quam vivam dorai 

 per aliquot menses alui ; junior erat, quia ad eam non pervenit mag- 

 nitudiDem, ut anserem communem mole superarefc. Halecem integrum 

 und vice degiutii-e valuit, & quandoque successive tres, antequam 

 ingluviem expleret. Dorsi plumse adeb molles & sequales, ut 

 holosericeum nigrum aemularetur, venter exiraio erat candore. Supra 

 oculos aream rotundam, candidam, Daleri magnitudine habuit, et 

 perspiciliis dotatam jurares (quod non animadvertit Clusius). Nee 

 alse eam obtinuere figuram, quam idem exprimit, latiores enim paulo 

 erant, cum limbo albo. Qaocirca meam avera ad vivum depingi curavi, 

 ut Icon esset accuratior." (Mvs. Worm. p. 300 ) 



The figure indeed is sufficiently accurate, except that the artist 

 has embellished its tbroat with a narrow white collar.* 



Debes, whose * Fseroa Eeserata ' was published in 1673, merely 

 mentions the " Garfogel" as occurring in these islands, adding that 

 he had several times had them, that they were easily tamed, but 

 would not live long inland (p. 130). Mohr, a Fgeroese by birth, in 

 1 786, speaks of some being caught there most summers {Forsoeg Isl. 

 Naturhist. p. 28). Landt in his ' Beskrivelse over E^eroeerne ' in 1800, 

 states that the " Gaarfugliu- " was then beginning to become rare there 

 (p. 254). Graba,who voyaged thither in 1828 prematurely thought it 

 was extinct, and declared that most of the natives did not even know 

 the bird by name, though some old people believed they had formerly 

 seen it at Westmannshavn, and one man, lately dead, told him he 

 had there killed with a stick an old one as it sat on its egg (Meise 

 nach Faro, pp. 198, 199). When Professor Steenstrup visited the 

 islands, he saw, as he now tells us, the head of a bird preserved 

 upon one of them. In 1849, AYolley (Contrib. Orn. 1850, p. 115) 

 was told by an old man that he had seen one sittino^ on the 



* It may be remarked that Worm, avIio rightly enougli identifies the species 

 with the An}<cr MagellanicHs of Clusius, makes the mistake of assigning the name 

 " Geo'-Jugl Islandorum," to the " 3Ier{/a7i.ser" of Gesner, ^vhich, as the description 

 and Gesner's figure show is the Mergns vicrganser of modern authors. There is 

 small blame to Clusius for conlbunding Aka impennisw'iili the Sphcnhcvlce, as some 

 few naturalists even now-a-days refuse to tlie latter the disiiuction of a family. 



