LfCAs, .Votes on the Great Auk. 



279 



of a bird so hampered by nature as the Great AuU. It is also 

 worthy of note that traditions concernins: the Great Auk refer to 

 a small nimiber of localities only, and moreover had the bird 

 availed itself of the many possible breeding places along the 

 coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador it might have endured in 

 lessened numbers until this day. 



There is a rumor that twenty years ago the Great Auk was 

 still to be found on the Penguin Islands, in the mouth of Gros 

 Water Bay, sixteen miles from Grady Harbor, a localitv about 

 two hundred and fifty miles north of Cape Norman, N. F.* Of 

 course this is possible, but it seems hardly probable. 



It was on the program, during the cruise of the Fish Com- 

 mission schooner 'Grampus,' in the summer of 1SS7 (a cruise 

 in which it was my good fortime to take part), to visit as many 

 of the probal^le former breeding grounds of the Great Auk as 

 circumstances would admit of, notably Penguin Island near Cape 

 la Hune (southern coast of Newfoundland), and Penguin Islands 

 near Cape Freels (eastern coast). Unfortunately ^olus decided 

 against a visit to the former locality — so often mentioned by the 

 early navigators — and let loose upou us a brisk southwester, 

 before which the 'Grampus' drove bv under shortened canvas at 

 the rate often knots an hour, while, with a visit to Fimk Island 

 still in prospect, it was deemed inadvisable to lose any time by 

 waiting for wind and sea to go down. 



On tiie eastern coast we were favored with better weather, and 

 leaving the well-named harbor of Seldom Come By early in the 

 morning, with a 'Newfoundland Pilot' (a lookout at the mast- 

 head) to guard against the possible contingency of a rock not 

 laid down on the chart, passed Peckford Reef, the Schoolmarm, 

 and Scrub Rocks, and came to anchor about noon oil' the Pen- 

 guin Islands, two flat, grassy islets rising but twenty feet above 

 the water and not at all suggestive of an Alcine breeding place. 



Still one of these may be that certain flat island whence men 

 "drave the Penguins on a board into their boats by hundreds at 

 a time," in spite of the fact that the islets are but three miles 

 from shore, and in consequence the Great Auk must have led 

 a very precarious existence. 



Offer Wadham, nine miles farther out to sea, is much more 



*For this report I am indebted to Mr. William Sclater of St. Johns, N. F. 



