2'7o Lucas, Nofcs on the Great Aiik. [Ju'y 



GREAT AUK NOTES. 



RV FREDERIC A. I.UCAS. 



Ornithologists owe a debt of gratitude to Professor New- 

 ton and Mr. Grieve for their contributions to the history of tiie 

 Great Auk, and for their hibors in collecting and rendering 

 accessible to Englisli and American readers the substance of 

 many scattered papers by foreign writers. Well as tiieir work- 

 has been done a few errors, here and there, have crept in, and 

 in correcting them, as the)^ come up in connection with some of 

 the points herein discussed, the writer trusts that he may not seem 

 ungracious, for few have probably studied the writings of the 

 above-named gentlemen with more pleasure and profit than 

 himself. 



To Professor Newton belongs the credit of calling attention to 

 the fact that the range of the Great Auk was much more re- 

 stricted than was generally supposed, and that the bird never 

 even visited many of the localities in which it was once thought 

 to have l^red. 



It is my own belief that, in historic times at least, the number 

 of places resorted to by the Great Auk for breeding purposes 

 was comparatively small, partly from the inability of the bird to 

 fly, but more from one of those unknosvn reasons which impel 

 some animals to select for their homes only one or two out of 

 many possible sites. 



We have a striking example of this in the Gannet, a bird 

 whose powers of flight are exceptionally great, and whose con- 

 siderable size and voracious appetite demand an abundant supply 

 of fish. It might therefore be supposed that this bird would be 

 found breeding at miiny places from Maine to Labrador, and yet, 

 so far as I am aware, it is found at only two spots in all this range 

 of coast, and to one of these we know certainly that it has resorted 

 for three hundred and fifty years* in spite of almost ceaseless per- 

 secution. 



If then such is the case with a bird gifted with unusual powers 

 of locomotion how much more likely it is to have been the habit 



*In 'The Auk' for April, by an unfortunate slip of the pen, I wrote three hundred 

 and thirty-two instead of three hundred and fifty-three. 



