On a hitherto Unrecorded Specimen of the Great Auk 337 



quaries has acquired several bones of tlie Great Auk from 

 the kitchen-middens of Caithness. Tlie Edinburgh Museum 

 of Science and Art has also obtained a considerable part of 

 the skeleton of a Great Auk, purchased from a dealer, and 

 probably forming part of the above-mentioned Funk Island 

 remains, besides a small collection of Auk bones recently 

 found by Mr Symington Grieve, when excavating an 

 ancient mound in the island of Oronsay. From the 

 same mound a few additional bones have been got by Mr 

 Wm. Galloway. These are now in the possession of Sir John 

 M'Neill, proprietor of the island. Kitchen-middens along 

 the west coast of Scotland have as yet been but little ex- 

 amined ; it is not improbable, therefore, that further explora- 

 tions of the kind made by Messrs Grieve and Galloway in 

 Oronsay may prove the Great Auk to have been more than 

 an occasional visitor to the Scottish shores. 



Of the 71 or 72 recorded skins of the Great Auk, the 

 United Kingdom possesses 22, not one of which, however, are 

 to be found in any Scottish collection. It was with much 

 pleasure, therefore, that I learned some time ago that Mr 

 Brotherston, the well-known naturalist of Kelso, had dis- 

 covered a stuffed specimen of the Great Auk in the collection 

 of birds belonging to His Grace the Duke of Eoxburghe at 

 Floors Castle. On his sus^aestion I communicated with the 

 Duke as to the desirability of putting on record the existence 

 of this hitherto unnoticed specimen, and His Grace at once 

 agreed to the bird being exhibited at the Eoyal Physical 

 Society. Unfortunately the history of this particular speci- 

 men is entirely unknown. On the under side of the stand 

 the words " Great Auk — male " are written, but neither 

 locality nor date is. given. The collection of birds at Floors 

 Castle, I am informed by Mr Brotherston, was made by the 

 late Duke sometime between 1830 and 1840. This, however, 

 was the period during which the Garefowl was being syste- 

 matically done to death on the skerry, off Iceland. It is 

 probable, therefore, that in the specimen now exhibited we 

 have one of the 60 birds taken from that last refuge of the 

 Auks between the years 1831 and 1844, and which are known 

 VOL. VII. Y 



