THE GAEE-FOAVL AND ITS UISTOIUANS. 483 



aiix nids." We tliiuk we have brought forward enough to show 

 that no species could long w^ithstand the contmuance of so 

 murderous a persecution, carried on too at the very season of repro- 

 duction. It is therefore far from being surprising that Anspach, 

 writing in 1819 (Hist. NewfouDdland, p. 393), should speak, as do all 

 the authors who have succeeded him on the same subject, of the 

 " Penguin " as extirpated in this quarter. Sir Eichard Bonnjcastle 

 (jN'ewfoundland in 1842, vol. i. p. 232, note) quotes a singular passage 

 from the " English Pilot," for 1794— a work we ourselves have not 

 been able to examine. Our readers will, of course, smile at the 

 asserted au-homochroism of the bird's eye-spots.— 



" There is also another thing to be taken notice of in treating of 

 this coast, that you may know this [bank] by the great quantities of 

 fowls upon the bank — namely, shearwaters, willocks, noddies, gidls, 

 penguins, &c , without making any exceptions ; which is a mistake, 

 for I have seen all these fowls a hundred leagues off this bank, the 

 penguins excepted," [This peculiarity of Alca impennis is con- 

 stantly mentioned by writers of the last century ; witness Macaulay 

 in a paper w^e have already quoted, Edwards, and Pennant.] " It 

 is true that all these fowls are seen there in great quantities, 

 but none are so much to be minded as the penguins, for these never 

 go without the bank, as others do, for they are always on it or within 

 it, several of them together ; sometimes more, sometimes less, but 

 never less than two together ; they are large fowls, about the bigness 

 of a goose, a coal-black head and back, with a white belly, and a milk 

 wdiite spot under one of their eyes, which nature has ordered to be 

 under the right eye — an extraordinary mark. Eor my part, I never 

 saw any with such a spot under their left eye. These birds never 

 fly, for their wings are very short and most like the fins of 

 fish, having nothing upon them but a sort of down and short 

 feathers." 



It is worthy of remark that Sir Eichard ascribes the extermina- 

 tion of the JS'ewfoimdland " Penguin " to " the ruthless trade in 

 its eggs and skin."* 



* "We imagine it was from this quarter that the matchless series of ten eggs, 

 recognized a few years ago, by Mr. A. Newton, in the Museum of the Royal Col- 

 lege of ISurgeons, must have come. All that is known of them is that they were 

 found, a short time prior to their recognition, by the late curator, Mr. Stewart, in a 

 box bearing the Avords, "Penguins' eggs— Dr. Dick." When or how they came into 

 the possession of the estabhshment there is no record. The fact, however, of the 



