2302 TUBE-NOSED BIRDS, DIVING BIRDS, PENGUINS 



by the presence of grooves on the front of the skull. The group may be divided 

 into three families, of which the second and third are much more closely related 

 to one another than they are to the first. 



THE AUKS 

 Family ALCID^ 



The auks are characterized externally by the absence of the first toe; while in 

 the skeleton the crest of the tibia is relatively short, the metatarsus is not laterally 

 compressed, and the vertebrae of the back are articulated together by cup and ball 

 joints. The front toes are fully webbed and furnished with sharp, claw-like nails; 

 the tail, although short, is normal, and the beak, although frequently much com- 

 pressed, deep, and short, is subject to great variation in form. The family includes 

 the true auks, guillemots, pygmy auks, and puffins; all of which are marine, and 

 confined to the colder regions of the Northern Hemisphere. 



The typical members of the family are characterized by the large 

 The True Auks . -,, ,-,> 1 j r ^ , , < 



size of the compressed beak, marked in front by oblique grooves, and 



feathered at its base close up to the slit-like nostrils, which are almost concealed by 

 a dense velvety feathering, completely filling the fossae in which they are situated. 

 The wings are more or less short, and the tail is graduated, with its component 

 feathers pointed. 



On account of its extinction in the past century, as well as from 

 being the largest representative of the family, and the only bird in the 

 Northern Hemisphere incapable of flight, the great auk, or garefowl (Alca impen- 

 nts\ is of great interest. In common with many other northern sea birds, it was 

 formerly known as the penguin, a name now transferred to. the well-known birds 

 of the Southern Hemisphere. In size, the great auk may be roughly compared to 

 a goose, its total length being about thirty-two inches. It was especially char- 

 acterized by the rudimentary condition of the wings, which, owing to the reduction 

 in the length of the ulna and bones of the digits, were quite useless in flight; while 

 it was further distinguished by the beak being equal in length to the head, and 

 furnished with numerous grooves on its lower, as well as on its upper mandible. 

 In color, the plumage of the head, neck, and back was black, while the under parts, 

 as well as a characteristic spot in front of the eye, were white. 



Confined to the North Atlantic, and ranging as far north as Iceland on the one 

 side and Greenland on the other, the great auk was a migratory species, which in 

 winter wandered as far south as the Bay of Biscay and the shores of Virginia. Both 

 in Greenland and Norway it appears to have been always rare; and its chief or only 

 breeding places were three rocky islands near Iceland, known as the Garefowl Sker- 

 ries or Geirfuglasker, and Funk island off the Newfoundland coast. By the subsi- 

 dence in the spring of 1830 of one of these islets, which as being the most inacces- 

 sible, was the favorite breeding place, the birds were driven to one nearer the shore, 

 where they were more easily approached; and in the course of the next fourteen 



