GREAT AUK 473 
Mr. Saunders states that ‘‘no other British specimens 
are in existence; but Mr. Henry Evans, during his visits 
to the St. Kilda group, has collected strong evidence that 
about 1840 a bird was secured on the grassy slopes of 
Stack-an-Armin, and was killed three days afterwards as a 
witch, in consequence of a storm which frightened its 
captors. Remains have been found in Caithness, Argyll- 
shire, some old sea-caves in Durham, and latterly in several 
districts of Ireland,’ especially near Waterford” ; and on the 
coasts of Antrim (figs. 56 and 57). 
Concerning its general habits, it may be remarked that 
the Great Auk was absolutely unable to rise on the wing, 
close to the cliffs between Ballymacaw and Brownston Head. It 
had been previously observed swimming about the locality by a man 
named David Hardy. <A fisherman named Kirby easily captured it by 
enticing it with sprats thrown near his boat, and finally succeeded in 
securing it in his landing-net. The bird lived in captivity for four 
months, though apparently in a semi-starved condition when first 
obtained. Refusing its food at first, potatoes and milk were forced 
down its gullet, after which it fed freely. Fish, preferably trout 
swallowed entire, was its chief diet. The bird assumed a very stately, 
erect attitude, had a strange habit of shaking its head, especially when 
food was offered it, and is said to have been rather fierce. It died on 
September 7th, 1834, and was presented by Dr. Burkitt to the Museum 
of Zoology, Trinity College, Dublin, in 1844. 
3 Bones of the Great Auk were obtained at Whitepark Bay, co. 
Antrim, with human remains believed to be those of the earliest 
Neolithic inhabitants of Ireland. In the accumulations of the same age 
the bones of horses, dogs or wolves, geese, ducks, and gulls, were found, 
together with stone-hammers, flint-flakes, and edible shell-fishes. The 
Great Auk in those remote ages appears to have been a common 
species about this and other parts of the Irish coast. (G. EK. Barrett- 
Hamilton, ‘Irish Naturalist,’ 1896, p. 121. Vide also W. J. Knowles’ 
‘Third Report on the Pre-historic Remains from the Sand-hills of the 
Coasts of Lreland,’ Proc. Royal Irish Acad. (3), vol. iii, No. 4, pp. 650-663, 
December, 1895, and vol. i, No. 5, 1891, zbid, also ‘Irish Naturalist,’ 
1899, p. 4.) 
Mr. Ussher obtained several Great Auks’ bones from the kitchen- 
middens on the Waterford coast. They were identified beyond doubt 
by Prof. Newton and Dr. Hans Gadow, of Cambridge. Many of these 
bones were found on or near the old surface where this cropped up, 
and with them were associated bones of domestic animals, fowl, and 
Red deer. Burned stones, layers of charcoal, and shells, were also 
present. Mr. Ussher mentions finding remains of no less than six 
Great Auks in the same group of sand-hills, which seems as though 
numbers of the birds were consumed as food (‘Irish Naturalist,’ 1897, 
p- 208, also 1899, p.1, cbid.). Quite recently Mr. Ussher records finding 
more Auks’ bones on the coast of co. Clare; other objects found there 
were burned pot-boilers, sand-stone slabs used for hearths, multitudes 
