80 THE STORY OF BIRD-LIFE. 



for this diet brought more than monotony with 

 it ; it came, accompanied by that great scourge 

 of all who have to subsist long on salt food — 

 scurvy. Consequently, at every port of call 

 fresh meat and vegetables were eagerly sought 

 for. Sometimes these were to be purchased of 

 the natives, civilised or otherwise, of the par- 

 ticular port. Sometimes they helped themselves 

 freely at the expense of Nature's children. These 

 were often so guileless, so unused to the presence 

 of man that they felt no fear of him, and he went 

 in and out amongst them and slaughtered at his 

 will. It is to be feared that this freedom more 

 often than not stirred up the brute within him, 

 and he got the lust of killing for killing's sake. 



But this is a digression. The extinction of the 

 great auk is one of the very few cases which can 

 in a measure claim our forbearance. But even 

 here greed was present, more were slain than 

 need have been. In a work published in 1620, 

 entitled "A Discourse and Discovery of New- 

 foundland," we read that ''among the water-fowl, 

 which are very plentiful, are ' penguins ' (the 

 name by which the great auk was generally 

 known) which are as bigge as geese and flye 

 not, for they have but a little short wing, and 

 they multiply so infinitely, upon a certain flat 

 island, that men drive them from thence upon 

 a board, into their boates by hundreds at a time, 

 as if God had made the innocency of so poore a 

 creature, to become such an admirable instrument 

 for the sustentation of man." 



On Funk Island these birds were discovered in 

 1534, and could then be reckoned by thousands. 



