BIRDS OF ESSEX COUNTY. 6 1 



years, and the birds were ruthlessly slaughtered for food and fish-bait, while the 

 latest survivors were killed by expeditions fitted out for the purpose of supply- 

 ing the various museums and collectors. Great Auks were often called Penguins 

 and an old gunner, residing at Chelsea Beach, assured Audubon that he " well 

 remembered the time when the Penguins were plentiful about Nahant and 

 some other islands in the bay." 1 



Putnam 2 records the finding of a humerus of this bird at Ipswich by Baird, 

 in August, 1866, and many bones of the Auk were found by Maynard 3 in the 

 shellheaps there, in 1867, and by Maynard and Allen, in 1868. 



Richard Whitbourne in his Voyage to Newfoundland, in 16 18, naively 

 throws light on the extinction of this bird. He says : "These Penguins are as 

 bigge as geese, and fly not, for they have but little short wings, and they multi- 

 ply so infinitely, upon a certain flat Island that men drive them from thence 

 upon a board into their Boats by hundreds at a time ; as if God had made the 

 innocencie of so poore a creature to become such an admirable instrument for 

 the sustentation of man." Alas, poor "Penguin" ! Would that you could have 

 " multiplied infinitely " so that the present generation of bird-lovers might have 

 enjoyed and fostered you ! 



Cormorants, the Double-crested (Phalacrocorax dilophus) and Common 

 (P. carbd), although still common migrants were very abundant in the early days 

 of the County, and the former and possibly the latter, bred here. Wood, 4 writ- 

 ing in 1634, says : " Cormorants bee as common as other fowles, which destroy 

 abundance of small fish .... they use to roost upon the tops of trees, and 

 rockes, being a very heavy, drowsie creature, so that the Indians will go in their 

 Cannowes in the night, and take them from the Rockes, as easily as women take 

 a Hen from roost." Josselyn, 5 in 1675, gives a fuller account of this as fol : 

 lows: "We must not forget the Cormorant, Shape or Sliarke; though I cannot 

 commend them to our curious palats, the Indians will eat them when they are 

 fley'd, they take them prettily, they roost in the night upon some Rock that 

 lyes out in the Sea, thither the Indian goes in his Birch- Canow when the Moon 

 shines clear, and when he is come almost to it, he lets his Canow drive on of it 

 self, when he is come under the Rock he shoves his Boat along till he come 

 just under the Cormorants watchman, the rest being asleep, and so soundly 

 do sleep that they will snore like so many Piggs ; the Indian thrusts up his 

 hand of a sudden, grasping the watchman so hard round about his neck that he 



1 J. J. Audubon : The Birds of America, vol. 7, p. 245, 1844. 



! F. W. Putnam: Proc. Essex Inst., vol. 5, p. 310, 1868. 



3 C. J. Maynard : The Naturalist's Guide, p. 159, 1870. 



* Wm. Wood: New England's Prospect, 1634; p. 33 of 1865 reprint. 



5 John Josselyn : An Account of two Voyages to New England, 1675 ; p. 279 of 1833 reprint. 



