GREAT AUK. 371 



ALCA IMPENNIS. 



GREAT AUK. 



(Plates 40 & 41.) 



Alca major, Briss. Orn. vi. p. 85, pi. vii. (1760). 



Alca impennis, Linn. Si/st. Nat, i. p. 210 (1766); et auctorum plurimorum — 



Tetmninck, Nauvumn, Dresser, Saunders, &c. 

 Ping-uiiius impeunis (Linn.), Bonn. Tabl. Encycl. i. p. 28 (1790). 

 Alca borealis, Forst. Spi. Cat. Brit. B. p. 29 (1817). 

 Plautus impennis (Linn.), Steenstrup, Nat. For. Vid. Medd. 1855, p. 114. 

 Chenalopex impennis (Linn.), Gray, Hand-l. B. iii. p. 95 (1871). 



The Great Auk was once a British bird, now it is regarded as an extinct 

 species, like the Solitaire Pigeon of Rodriguez, or the Phillip-Island Parrot, 

 the Dodo of Mauritius Island, or the Moa of New Zealand. The 

 extinction of the Great Auk has taken place during the lifetime of the 

 present generation. It is scarcely more than half a century since the last 

 British example of this curious bird was killed, and ten years later the 

 survivors of the only colony left were captured, and the history of the 

 Great Auk became a legend of the past. 



Two hundred years ago the Gare Fowl or Great Auk was known as a 

 regular summer visitor to St. Kilda ; but as long ago as 1758 its visits had 

 become irregular, though a bird was caught alive near the islands as late 

 as 1821. One of the examples in the British Museum was obtained about 

 1812 on the island of Papa Westra, one o£ the Orkneys, where Bullock 

 tried in vain to catch one, probably the same bird, a few weeks earlier, 

 whose mate was killed a short time before his visit. The only other 

 authentic instance of the occurrence of the Great Auk in the British 

 Islands is that of an example caught in a landing-net in Waterford 

 Harbour, in May 1834, and now in the Trinity College Museum in 

 Dublin. 



The Great Auk was a semi-Arctic Atlantic species, breeding on the 

 islands off the coasts of Newfoundland, Labrador, South Greenland, Ice- 

 land, the Faroes, and probably on some of the islands on the coast of 

 Norway. In winter it appears to have wandered as far south as the coasts 

 of Carolina in the west, and the shores of Jutland in the east ; but there is 

 no authentic record of its having ever been seen as far north as the Arctic 

 circle. 



The most interesting question in the history of the Great Auk is the 

 cause which led to its decrease and final extinction. There can be little 

 doubt that this was its inability to fly. A bird the size of a goose (an 

 example caught in 1809 on the Faroes is said to have weighed eleven 



