GREAT AUK 481 
for food. It seems evident that it was through the active 
agency of Man, who made special raids on it, that this 
ill-fated bird was hurried to its doom; and, when the birds 
grew scarce as marketable commodities, it is certain that 
the last of the species were killed to supply the wants of 
museum and private collectors, and thus the bird became 
totally extinct. 
That the Great Auk did not become scarce by slow 
degrees ike many other now extinct creatures, is a fact well 
acknowledged by many ornithologists, and here I quote 
the words of Professor Newton on the subject :—‘‘ In Ice- 
land there is the testimony of a score of witnesses, taken 
down from their lips by one of the most careful naturalists 
who ever lived, the late John Wolley, that the latest sur- 
vivors of the species were caught and killed by expeditions 
expressly organised with the view of supplying the demands 
of caterers to the various museums of Europe. 
‘Tn like manner the fact is incontestable that its breed- 
ing-stations in the western part of the Atlantic were for 
three centuries regularly visited and devastated with the 
combined objects of furnishing food or bait to the fishermen 
from very early days, and its final extinction, foretold in 
1792 by Cartwright (Labrador, ii. p. 55), was due, accord- 
ing to Sir Richard Bonnycastle (Newfoundland in 1842, i. 
p- 232), to the ruthless trade in its eggs and skin.” 
‘““No doubt that one of the chief stations of this species 
in Icelandic waters disappeared . . . . through volcanic 
action, and that the destruction of the old Geirfuglaskér 
drove some at least of the birds which frequented it to a 
rock nearer the mainland, where they were exposed to 
danger from which they had in their former abode been 
comparatively free ; yet on this rock (Eldey=fire-island) they 
were “‘specially hunted down” whenever opportunity offered, 
until the stock there was wholly extirpated in 1844, and 
whether any remained elsewhere must be deemed most 
doubtful.’ 
With reference to the disappearance of the Great Auk 
from Icelandic waters, Mr. Saunders gives the following 
summarised account :—‘‘ Off the south-west of Iceland, 
which has furnished the majority of the skins and eggs 
existing in collections, there were three skerries on which 
' For a detailed and interesting account of this subject the reader is 
referred to the ‘Ibis,’ 1861, pp. 374-399; also to Grieve, “ The Great 
Auk,” &e. 
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