102 Recent Notes on the Great Aiik. [Sess. 



regarding the Alca, impennis and its history, and asked him to use every 

 effort to discover if tlie other three birds should yet show themselves ; but 

 none of them were afterwards visible." When Brodtkorb had learned from 

 Nordvi what a treasure he had cast into the sea, they both instituted in 

 the following year careful searches after other specimens, but in vain. 

 "When Mr John Wolley, some years later (1855), visited Vardo, and heard 

 this information from Brodtkorb's own lips, he too felt personally con- 

 vinced that the bird shot was an Alca impennis, and made diligent inves- 

 tigation along the shore in the hope of finding parts of that or some other 

 specimens. 



The communications given above hardly leave a doubt possible that as 

 late as 1848 isolated individuals of this species were living as homeless 

 wanderers. It was some of these (perhaps the last survivors of the whole 

 species) that were found in the spring of that year close inshore on the 

 coast of the Arctic Ocean near Vardii — that is to say, a far way to the east 

 of the North Cape, and under a latitude which is considerably higher than 

 that which scientists had felt themselves justified in assigning as the limit 

 of the Great Auk's diffusion, at least within historical times. 



So writes Professor Collett; and, while giving due weight to 

 his valuable opinion, we have to put in the opposite balance, as 

 against the theory of the bird observed being a Great Auk, the 

 opinion of Professor Japetus Steenstrup of Copenhagen, who 

 referred to this supposed occurrence of Alca ivipcnnis as far 

 back as 1855, as we have already mentioned, when he had 

 far better opportunities of sifting the evidence than Professor 

 Collett twenty-nine years later. After such a length of time 

 even the memories of Herr L. Brodtkorb and Herr Nordvi 

 may to some extent have failed them. Professor A. Newton 

 of Cambridge agrees with the opinion expressed by Professor 

 Steenstrup ; and he has in his possession the manuscripts of 

 the late Mr Wolley, whose opinion regarding the authenticity 

 of this supposed occurrence of the Great Auk he must know, 

 and it is not likely that Mr "Wolley had expressed himself (in 

 his notes at least) as at all certain that the bird referred to 

 was really a Great Auk, or Professor Newton would have 

 mentioned it. My own opinion is that it is better to leave 

 such a matter an open question ; and in any case the interest- 

 ing statements collected by Professor Collett are well worth 

 recording. If three specimens really did escape from Herr L. 

 Brodtkorb, it is possible that we have not heard the last of the 

 living Great Auk ; and who knows but some fine morning the 

 daily press will be filled with telegrams upon the rediscovery 

 of the bird. We can picture the despair of possessors of 



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