i897-9 8 -] The Great Auk. 333 



Afterwards I got two humeri which had weathered out of this 

 old surface. Then the humerus with ulna, radius, and smaller 

 bones of the wing were found where they had all just freshly 

 dropped out, and were still in close relationship to each other. 

 All of these were found opposite different hut sites, and those 

 I wrote you lastly about were found opposite a hut site where 

 I had not previously obtained any such bones. The two 

 coracoids I got a few days ago belong to one side, and so, 

 though found near each other, could not be a pair. All the 

 bones, however, have been found at Whitepark Bay within a 

 radius of 200 or 300 yards." 



These discoveries of Great Auk remains in kitchen-middens 

 are exceedingly interesting, as they indicate pretty clearly that 

 the few Great Auks that are recorded as having been seen 

 along the coasts of Ireland during the past century were 

 visiting the homes of their progenitors. 



It seems likely that further investigations will lead to the 

 discovery that the Great Auk did not confine its visits to only 

 one or two points on the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, and 

 north-eastern England, but was widely distributed, and formed 

 an important item of food for the ancient fishermen and shore- 

 dwellers of Ireland and the western and northern shores of 

 Britain. I would even go further and suggest that the shores 

 of Eastern Scotland and the north-east of England are well 

 worth careful examination wherever the kitchen-middens of 

 the ancient inhabitants are to be found. 



In Scotland the remains of Alca impennis were found by 

 me on Oronsay associated with the shells of many molluscs, 

 fish-bones, and layers of scales of the grey mullet and other 

 fish, numbers of bones of birds and animals, stone pot-boilers, 

 stone limpet - hammers, bone spear - heads, rubbed bones or 

 portions of antlers, a bone awl, and a number of other things 

 enumerated at p. 47 of ' The Great Auk or Garefowl : Its 

 History, Archaeology, and Kemains.' The race that formed 

 this deposit appears to have been the same that left traces of 

 its existence at various points upon the Irish coasts, and also 

 in caves at Oban (' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries 

 of Scotland,' vol. xxix., pp. 211 and 410). They may be 

 the same people who formed the kitchen-midden at Keiss, in 

 Caithness, in which were discovered by the late Mr Samuel 



VOL. III. z 



