72 SEA-BIRDS 



female on the island of Fugloy which was found on dissection to 

 contain a well-formed egg; and Jorgen Landt (1800, 1810), who wrote 

 his MS. not earlier than 1797, mentions great auks as "climbing up the 

 low rocks." G. J. Graba (1830), who was in the Faeroes in 1828, met 

 old natives who had formerly seen the great auk at Vestmanna on 

 Streymoy, and one who told him that he had killed one on an egg at 

 this place. J. WoUey (1850) in 1849, interviewed an old man who 

 "had seen one fifty years ago, sitting among the Hedlafuglur, * that 

 is young Guillemots and other birds upon the low rocks, and old 

 men told him it was very rare. This was about the time when Landt 

 wrote." Wolley was told that formerly, when many were seen, it was 

 considered a sign of a good bird year; which suggests that the auks 

 may have been desultory visitors for a long time. Finally H. W. Feilden 

 (1872) interviewed an old fowler in 1872, who claimed to have killed 

 a great auk on the island of Stora Dimun on i July 1808; the last 

 record for the Faeroes. K. Williamson (1948) points out that none 

 of these records constitutes proof of breeding, though we agree with 

 him that, though scarce, it probably did breed in the Faeroes until 

 the eighteenth century. 



The great auks of southern Iceland are well documented, and their 

 history has often been related. They certainly bred on two, and perhaps 

 bred on four Geirfuglaskers^ or gare-fowl skerries off the coast; from 

 east to west these can be identified as Hvalbakur, the most easterly 

 point of Iceland, about 26 statute miles east of the island of Papey, 

 near Djupivogur; Tvisker off BreiSamerkursandur under the great 

 southern ice-cap of Vatnajokull; Geirfuglasker, the southernmost islet 

 of the Westmann Islands, and the most southerly point of Iceland; 

 and (until it sank beneath the waves in a volcanic disturbance in 

 1830) Geirfuglasker, nineteen or twenty miles south-west of Cape 

 Reykjanes, the most south-westerly point of Iceland save a rock 

 Geirfugladrangur less than a mile further to sea, which still stands 

 but was probably never inhabited by great auks. After the volcanic 

 disturbance the garefowls went for as long as they were spared to 

 the island of Eldey^ almost exactly between Geirfuglasker and Gape 

 Reykjanes. 



It would seem from the accounts of Olafsson (1772) and Olavius 

 ( 1 780) that Hvalbakur, the distant whale-back skerry of east Iceland, 

 may have been inhabited by great auks when those historians were in 



*Williamson (1948) gives '^Hellefuglar: sea-birds 'fleyged' [see p. 99] when 

 flying at the foot of the diffs." 



