2304 TUBE-NOSED BIRDS, DIVING BIRDS, PENGUINS 



traditions of these expeditions, it is indisputable that stone pens were erected into 

 which the birds were driven like sheep, that they were slain by millions, and that 

 their bodies were left to rot where they lay, while for some purpose or other fre- 

 quent and long-continued fires were lighted on the island. The records of this 

 slaughter are still extant in the numbers of garefowl bones to be met with in the soil 

 of Funk island; such relics, together with a few skins, and a number of eggshells, 

 being all that remain to us of the finest of auks. 



That the garefowl was generally a gregarious bird, more especially during the 

 breeding season, is evident from the foregoing; but it is stated that solitary pairs 

 were occasionally found nesting with guillemots and razorbills. Although useless 

 for flight, the wings were admirably suited as paddles, and the swimming and diving 

 powers of the bird were probably unrivaled, its migrations being more extensive than 

 those of many of its relatives which possess the power of flight. From the accounts 

 of the natives of Iceland, it appears that the garefowl sw 7 am with its head elevated 

 and the neck retracted, and that, when pursued, instead of flapping along the water, 

 it immediately dived. As in allied species, the eggs are relatively large in propor- 

 tion to the size of the bird, often measuring just over five inches in length, and they 

 have also the same elongated form, with one end much larger than the other. They 

 have a creamy-white ground color, marked with black or brown streaks and blotches, 

 with underlying gray patches. 



The common English razorbill (A. torda), which is the only other 

 representative of the genus, differs from the garefowl not only by its 

 greatly inferior size (length about seventeen inches), but likewise by its well- 

 developed wings and its relatively-shorter beak, in which there are but two or three 

 grooves on the lower mandible, and these indistinctly marked. Lacking the large 

 white spot in front of the eye characterizing the great auk, the adult razorbill in 

 summer has a narrow white line extending from the beak to the eye. While in sum- 

 mer the chin and throat of the adult are brown, and the head, hind -neck, and 

 upper parts black, with the under parts white, in the winter dress the white ex- 

 tends upward to the throat, chin, and sides of the head, and the plumage of the 

 upper parts is browner. The razorbill is common to the coasts and islands of both 

 sides of the North Atlantic, ranging as far north as latitude 70 in Greenland, while 

 in winter it reaches Gibraltar, from whence it wanders a considerable distance up 

 the Mediterranean. Resident throughout the year in the British seas, it breeds on 

 all suitable rocky coasts, from the north of France to Cape North, generally in 

 large colonies. Concerning its breeding habits, we find it stated in the third edition 

 of YarrelVs British Birds that "about the middle or latter part of March in the 

 south of England, and early in April in the northern portions of our islands, the 

 razorbills, guillemots, and puffins converge to particular points, where, from 

 the numbers that congregate, and the bustle apparent among them, confusion of in- 

 terests might be expected. It will, however, be found that, as a rule, the guille- 

 mots occupy one station or line of ledges on the rock; the razorbills another; the 

 puffins a third; the kittiwake gulls a fourth; while the most inaccessible crags seem 

 to be left for the use of the herring gulls. The razorbills generally select the 

 higher and rougher ledges, and they are partial to crevices, their eggs being some- 



