ST. KILDA FROM WITHOUT 191 



makes its uncertain voyages to them is a mystery of 

 nature.' 



There is something dramatically appropriate in what, 

 until rumour gives way to something more definite, 

 must be considered the last appearance of the Great 

 Auk. The story is told by the authors of the Fauna of 

 the Outer Hebrides, on the authority of Mr. Henry 

 Evans of Jura, who learnt it from old men who had 

 known the chief actors in the tragedy. 



In the month of June, in or about 1840, three men 

 from St. Kilda landed on a neighbouring rock, the 

 Stack-au-Armine. Half-way up the Stack they found 

 a strange bird. 



' Prophet-like that lone one stood ' 



the last of his race. One of the three men caught it 

 by the neck, while the others tied its legs. For three 

 days it was kept alive, but on the fourth day a storm 

 sprang up, and it was sentenced to die as a witch. 

 Solitary, and misunderstood, the bird fought hard to 

 save a species from extinction, biting nearly through 

 the ropes that tied it, and was not killed until it had 

 been ' beaten for an hour with two large stones.' An 

 Auk's egg was sold by auction in Stevens's Rooms, in 

 1888, for 225. It would be curious to see what 

 Lauchlan Mackinnon, who, if living still, would be 

 little over ninety, could now get for such a captive, well 

 advertised for sale, alive. 



Most of the early writers mention, as a characteristic 

 of the ' Gair Fowl,' a ' hatching spot a bare spot,' that 



