g6 Recent Notes on the Great Auk. [Sess. 



printed in Halifax by Dakin & Metcalf, and pnblished at the 

 Wesleyan Book-room in 1866, p. 64, the following reference 

 is made to the Great Auk : ' Half a century ago the Penguin 

 was very plenty. It is a handsome bird, about the size of a 

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

 milk-white spot under the right eye. They cannot fly well, 

 — their wings are more like fins. They have on their bodies 

 short feathers and down. The Penguin is now but seldom 

 seen : such destruction of the bird was made for the sake of 

 its feathers, that it is now all but extinct.' " Mr George A. 

 Boardman having seen the above paragraph, and meeting its 

 author, questioned him more particularly about the Penguin, 

 and obtained a few further details. At the time of his resi- 

 dence in Newfoundland he was a Methodist missionary stationed 

 on the coast, not far from Funk or Fogo Island, between the 

 years 1818 and 1823. " He saw the Penguin during the 

 whole of his stay in the island in considerable numbers, and 

 frequently lectured the inhabitants for their cruelty in de- 

 stroying them merely for their feathers. It was quite com- 

 mon for the boys to keep them tied by the legs as pets." 

 The foregoing is a most interesting and important statement, 

 and refers to a period (as far as the history of the Great Auk 

 on the shores of ISTewfoundland is concerned) about which 

 very little appears to have been recorded. If the statement 

 can be thoroughly depended upon, the Great Auk must have 

 been much more plentiful in the region referred to from 1818 

 to 1823 than we have hitherto been led to suppose. There 

 are one or two inaccuracies in the above statements, such as 

 the reference to the bird having a white spot over only the 

 right eye, and the remark, " not far from Funk or Fogo 

 Island " — Funk Island and Fogo Island being separate places, 

 although not far from each other. From other references to 

 be met with, it appears that the fishermen who lived on Fogo 

 Island were in the habit of visiting Funk Island to obtain the 

 Great Auk, so it is probable the missionary was located on 

 Fogo Island, as there are no human beings resident on Funk 

 Island, and it is only visited a few times each season.^ 



1 Since the foregoing was written, Mr Frederic A. Lucas of the United States 

 National Museum, Washington, has contributed a paper to the American 

 Ornithological Journal, 'The Auk,' vol. v. p. 278 (July 1888). At p. 279 he 



