1897-9^-] The Great Auk. 331 



Was the chick of Alca impennis covered with down when 

 hatched ? — I am not aware that this question has been con- 

 sidered by any writer upon the Great Auk, nor do I know 

 of any reference to this particular period in the life-history of 

 Alca impennis. If we turn to the allied species, Alca torda, 

 we may perhaps get a hint as to what was the state of the 

 young of Alca impennis when introduced into the world. 



In an article which appeared in the ' Zoologist ' for April 

 1894, p. 123, written by Mr John Cordeaux, reviewing the 

 popular brochure by Professor Eobert Collett of Christiania, 

 entitled ' Bird Life in Arctic Norway,' the writer says : " The 

 young Eazorbill (Alca torda) ushered into the world on a bare 

 wind-swept ledge exposed to every storm, to sleet, snow, and 

 rain, is almost entirely naked ; but the young Puffin, born in 

 a deep and sheltered hole, is a living ball of down. The ap- 

 parent unfitness of this arrangement is one of those points in 

 the economy of nature difficult to understand, for it does not 

 appear in this case, at least, that the wind is tempered for the 

 shorn lamb." 



Bones. 



Ireland. 



Professor A. Newton having kindly informed me that a dis- 

 covery of bones of the Great Auk had been made in one or 

 more ancient kitchen-middens on the coast of County Water- 

 ford by Mr R I. Ussher, I wrote that gentleman, and in reply 

 he referred me to a short article he had written which ap- 

 peared in the 'Irish Naturalist' for August 1897. In that 

 article he says : " I recently sent to Professor Newton some 

 birds' bones, found by me in kitchen-middens on the coast of 

 this county, from which I have also obtained bones or horns of 

 ox, goat, horse, pig, red-deer, and domestic fowl, an abundance 

 of shells of oysters, cockles, mussels, and limpets, with many 

 pot-boilers or burned stones. I have just received back the 

 birds' bones from Professor Newton, who kindly writes as 

 follows : — 



Cambridge, St/i June 1897. 



I think that all but two of them are fairly determined, thanks to the 

 care bestowed on them by Dr Gadow. The real work of determination 



