FLIGHTLESS BIRDS AND THEIR FATE. 81 



For more than two hundred years they were sub- 

 jected to a ceaseless persecution, till at last they 

 were exterminated. On this island, it is said, it 

 was the custom for the crews of several vessels 

 to spend the summer for the sole purpose of 

 killing "gare-fowl" (another alias of the great 

 auk) for the sake of their feathers. Stone-pens 

 were erected into which the birds Avere driven 

 like sheep, to be slain by millions, and their 

 bodies left to rot where they lay. 



Two motives thus seem to have been at work, 

 bringing about the destruction of these poor 

 helpless fowl. Let us hope the need of food 

 predominated ; the evidence so far seems to 

 point this way. 



The great auk appears to have been exter- 

 minated in this quarter of the world before the 

 beginning of the present century. 



As a British bird it was nowhere plentiful, the 

 last seems to have been captured alive in Water- 

 ford Harbour in 1834. It was kept a prisoner 

 for some time, and on its death becam.e one of 

 the chief ornaments and treasures of the museum 

 of Trinity College, Dublin. 



The ostrich and the rhea, the emu, the apteryx 

 and the moa, serve us with more instances of 

 flightless birds. 



The wings of the ostrich have not yet ceased 

 to be useful though they no longer serve as 

 organs of flight. They are used now as balancers 

 in running. For this they seem to be no mean 

 aids. Job's description of this terrestrial flight 

 is vivid : "What time she lifteth up herself on high 

 she scorneth the horse and his rider." 



