v PTEROCLIDAE Biya 
beak to the eye, and another crossing both mandibles in the 
adult only. The tips of the secondaries are white, forming an 
alar bar, the feet are black. The throat and cheeks are white in 
the winter and immature plumage. 4. impennis, the extinct 
Great Auk or Garefowl, inhabited the North Atlantic, chiefly 
in the neighbourhood of Iceland and Newfoundland, but ap- 
parently never reached north of the Arctic Circle. Remains 
have been found in the kitchen-middens of Denmark, North and 
West Scotland, and North and South Ireland; in a cave on the 
coast of Durham; and abundantly on Funk Island in the New- 
foundland Seas, where the bird was called “ Penguin”; that name 
being subsequently transferred to the Spheniscidae. The last two 
living examples were obtained at the isle of Eldey, off Iceland, in 
1844, while 1812, 1821, and 1834 are the last dates of capture 
in Orkney, St. Kilda, and Ireland respectively, allowing for a 
possible instance in St. Kilda (Borrera) in 1840. This species, 
extirpated chiefly by the persecution of fishermen, but subsequently 
by collectors, resembled a flightless Razorbill, though double the 
size; 1t had no white stripes on the head or bill, but shewed a 
large white patch before each eye. The huge egg was white or 
buff, with scattered round spots or plentiful fine scrawls of 
black or brown; about seventy of these egos, and a somewhat 
greater number of birds, existing at present in collections.’ 
Mergulus alle, the Little Auk or Rotche, occurring on 
migration in Britain, and occasionally in the Canaries, Azores, 
and New Jersey, breeds from Greenland and the Kara Sea to 
North Iceland. It is black above and white below, with a spot 
over the eye, streaks on the scapulars, and an alar bar also of 
white; the throat is black in summer only. The short, broad, 
arched bill is black, the feet are brownish. The single greenish- 
or bluish-white egg, often shewing faint rufous markings, is de- 
posited in a deep crevice of a cliff, or among boulders on beaches. 
As regards fossil forms, Uria has been found in the Miocene 
of Maine and North Carolina, and in the Pliocene of Tuscany. 
Of the second or Pteroclo-Columbine group of Charadriiform 
Birds (p. 268) the Old World Sub-Order PTEROCLEs contains only— 
Fam. LX. Pteroclidae, or the Sand-Grouse, equally interesting 
as regards their structure and their habits. Originally considered 
1 For the literature, see A. Newton, Dict. Birds, 1893, pp. 220-221, 303-308. 
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