484 THE N^ATUEAL HISTORY EETIEW. 



Singular testimony to the truth of the extracts above given re- 

 specting the former annual massacres of this bird in the Newfound- 

 land seas has been afforded. In 1841, a young Norwegian naturalist, 

 Peter Stuvitz by name, "vwas commissioned by his Government to in- 

 quire into the state of the cod-fisheries in that part of the w^orld, 

 with the view of obtaining information that might be beneficial to the 

 same important branch of industry carrie^l on off the coast of Nor- 

 way. In the course of his investigations he heard frequent mention 

 made by those he questioned of the former existence in immense 

 multitudes of a bird which they termed a " Penguin," and in his 

 report he alluded to this fact. The authorities at home w^ere puzzled 

 by the statement, believing that Penguins w^ere only limited to the 

 southern hemisphere, and expressed themselves to that effect. Stuvitz 

 feeling his credit for the assertion at stake, made a point of visiting 

 the Punk Islands, a small cluster of rocks lying off the entrance of 

 Bonavista Bay, and there found, as he had been led to expect he 

 should find, the remains of rude stone enclosures— 'pounds,' as the 

 fishermen called them — into which the hapless victims had of old 

 time been driven by their persecutors, and heaps of the so-called 

 "Penguins'" bones. Some of the latter he sent to Christiania, where 

 they were speedily recognized as belonging to Alca impennis, and a 

 solution of the mystery was thus arrived at. In 1863, a Yankee 

 speculator obtained from the Colonial Government leave to deport 

 the soil from these rocks, which he sent to Boston to be used as 

 manure for agricultural purposes, and we read (P. Z. S., 1868, 

 p. 437) that this has now been effectually done. In the process of re- 

 moving the half-frozen mould, 3iot only many bones of the species 

 were disinterred, but at some depth beneath the surface, w^ere several 

 natural mummies of the bird, preserved, partly by the antiseptic pro- 

 perty of the peat, and partly by the icy sub-soil. Two of these mum- 

 mies were fortunately obtained by the Bishop of Newfoundland, who 

 had been made aware by a gentleman in this country of the interest 



name " Penguin " being applied to them is sufficient to suggest their transatlantic 

 origin, for on this side of the water the term never seems to have been used to desig- 

 nate the Alca imjyenms. Perhaps some of our readers may be able to throw light 

 on the subject by informing us who this Dr. Dick could have been, and at what 

 period he flourished. We cannot refrain in this place from expressing our regret 

 that the authorities of the Royal College, have lately thought fit to disperse this 

 unrivalled collection of specimens without having previously had models or photo- 

 graphs taken of them. 



