SEA-BIRD NUMBERS AND MAN 67 



Other stations at which it possibly nested, but about which the evidence 

 is not entirely satisfactory, are: 



In Britain, the Calf of Man 



In the Faeroes, Fugloy and Streymoy 



In Iceland, Hvalbakur and Tvlsker 



In Maine, the Georges Islands in Knox County 



In Nova Scotia, an island near Yarmouth (? in Tusket Is.) 



In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Cape Breton 



In Newfoundland, 'Penguin Island' off Cape La Hune (south) 



and 'Penguin Island' near Cape Freels (east) 

 In Greenland, Leif 's and Erik den Rode's Islands, near Angmagssalik. 



There is no doubt that the main population, when history overtook 

 the great auk, was around the island of Newfoundland, and particu- 

 larly upon Funk Island, where, according to Peters and Burleigh 

 ( 1 951), it was probably first seen in 1 170 by some early Norse explorers 

 of the New World from Greenland. 



When Jacques Cartier visited Funk Island on his first voyage to 

 Newfoundland in May 1534 his crews filled two boats with the birds 

 in less than half an hour, and every ship salted down five or six barrel- 

 fuls. Two years later the voyager Robert Hore came to^one of the Penguin 

 Islands or Funk Island, and found it full of auks and their eggs. 

 They spread their sails from ship to shore and drove a great number 

 of the birds on board upon the sails; and they took many eggs. By 1578 

 it was the normal thing for French and British crews in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence or on the Newfoundland Banks to stock their ships with 

 auk-meat, stopping at the Bird Rocks, or Penguin Islands or Funk 

 Island, and driving the great auks aboard on planks. Today there is 

 nothing but old ships' logs and travellers' diaries to record where the 

 western auks once lived in thousands, save on Funk Island, where a 

 great many bones have been found. 



It seems clear, from the account of Peters and Burleigh, that the 

 great auk became extinct in Newfoundland in about 1800. George 

 Cartwright (1792), who lived in Newfoundland Labrador for most 

 of the period 1 770-1 786, and who often sailed across the Straits of 

 Belle Isle to northern Newfoundland, only logged personal meetings 

 with great auks in his diary twice, on 4 August 1771 and 10 June 1774. 

 On a visit to Fogo Island harbour on 5 July 1 785 he wrote: 



"A boat came in from Funk Island laden with birds, chiefly penguins. 

 Funk Island is a small flat island-rock, about twenty leagues 



