GIANT ROAD-MAKERS 119 



of this ill-fated bird was "the North Atlantic, 

 south of the Arctic Circle, ranging on the American 

 side from Labrador to Virginia, or perhaps excep- 

 tionally as far as Florida, where bones have re- 

 cently been found in aboriginal shell-heaps, and on 

 the European side from Iceland to the Bay of Bis- 

 cay." In 1842 the last of these birds was killed on 

 the American side, while the last was seen in Europe 

 in 1844. 



One of America's foremost pioneer ornithologists 

 wrote the following account of these birds long be- 

 fore they were extinct: "Deprived of the use of 

 wings, degraded as it were from the feathered ranks, 

 and almost numbered among amphibious monsters 

 of the deep, the auk seems condemned to dwell alone 

 in the desolate and forsaken regions of the earth, 

 yet aided by all-bountiful nature, it finds means 

 to subsist, and triumphs over all the physical ills 

 of its condition. As a diver it remains unrivalled, 

 proceeding beneath the water, its most natural ele- 

 ment, almost with the velocity of many birds 

 through the air. It thus contrives to vary its situa- 

 tion with the season, migrating for short distances, 

 like the finny prey upon which it feeds. In the 

 Faroe Isles, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfound- 

 land these birds dwell and breed in large numbers." 

 Since these words were written the sad history of 



