6o MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



CHAPTER IX. 



ORNITHOLOGICAL HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY. 



1616-1904. 



"Ayre darkening sholes of pigeons picke their berries sweet and good, 

 The lovely cherries birds entice to feast themselves in woods. 

 The Turkies, Partridge, Heath-hens and their young ones tracing passe, 

 The woods and medowes, Achorns eat, and hoppers in the grasse." 



Anon., " Good News from A'e-v England," 1648. 



Among the writings of the early travelers and explorers of this region, as 

 well as in the histories written from time to time of the old towns of Essex 

 County, occasional references are found to the birds, and some of these are of 

 great interest to ornithologists. Several of these references are to birds that 

 are now extirpated from this part of the country, while in two cases the species 

 have become extinct. Many other birds, especially those used for food, are 

 now rare or even only accidental in the County. 



The immense numbers of waterfowl of all kinds in the early days of this 

 part of the country are attested by all the older writers. The history of one of 

 these waterfowl, now extinct, namely, the Great Auk (Plantiis impennis) is so 

 interesting that I have gone outside of the County in order to give it briefly in 

 detail. The last specimen of this bird was killed by Eldey, off the southwest 

 point of Iceland, in 1844, the last living bird was seen in 1S52, and a dead 

 specimen was picked up in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, in 1853. 1 The Great 

 Auk was not, as popularly supposed, a bird of the polar seas, but ranged from 

 Iceland to the Bay of Biscay on the eastern, and from Greenland to Virginia on 

 the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The most important breeding sta- 

 tion on our shores was Funk Island, off Newfoundland, from which large stores 

 of its bones and even mummified remains have been brought by Stewitz, in 1841, 

 Milne, in 1874, and especially by Lucas, in 1887. 2 The extinction of this inter- 

 esting bird was undoubtedly due to man. Its breeding stations were visited for 



'John Macoun : Catalogue of Canadian Birds, part 1, p. 26, 1900. 



2 Alfred Newton: Dictionary of Birds, article "Gare Fowl," 1 S93-96 ; also Charles Dixon: Lost 

 and Vanishing Birds, p. 87, 1898. 



