'St. Kilda from Without. i 03 



eight or ten years, come from the coast of 

 Norway. 



There is nothing impossible in the idea that the 

 bird may be still in existence somewhere, and nothing 

 more probable that, in such case, one may sooner or 

 later find its way to St. Kilda, where it was once 

 common. 



Martin, writing in 1697, mentions it first in the 

 list of sea-fowl visiting the island " the stateliest as 

 well as the largest of the sea-fowl here. He comes," 

 he writes, " without regard to any wind, appears 

 the first of May and goes away about the middle 

 of June." Sixty years later its visits were becoming 

 less regular, but it was still a familiar bird. Macaulay, 

 who visited St. Kilda in 1758, as missionary from 

 the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, 

 which, as he tells in his preface, took "a peculiar 

 concern in the people of that Island," says, that he 

 had not himself, during his stay, "an opportunity of 

 knowing it." The St. Kildians do not, he adds, 

 " receive an annual visit from this strange bird as 

 from all the rest on the list and many more. It 

 keeps at a distance from them. They know not 

 where for a course of years. From what land or 

 ocean it 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 



