THE GREAT AUK. 195 



as the Albatross (Diomedea exulans) and the Frigate-bird (Fre- 

 gata aquilus), the wings receive their highest degree of develop- 

 ment, and become such effective organs of aerial locomotion as to 

 enable these birds to live almost continuously in the air, fre- 

 quently at the distance of a thousand miles or more from the 

 land. In others, as the Penguins, the wings are reduced to mere 

 flippers, which, powerless for the purpose of flight, serve the 

 birds in the water as fins for swimming, and on the land as a fore 

 pair of limbs, by means of which they hobble along on all fours, 

 after the fashion of an ordinary quadruped. The bird which is 

 best known for this quadrupedal procedure is the famous Jackass 

 Penguin (Aptenodytes demersa"), and it has this additional claim to 

 its elegant appellation, that it makes a loud and most discordant 

 noise, very like the braying of its namesake. 



The Penguins belong exclusively to the south, and are repre- 

 sented in the northern hemisphere by the Auks, to one of which the 

 attention of naturalists is now directed in a very especial manner. 



It appears that the Great Auk (Alca impennis) , a noble bird 

 nearly three feet in length, and once an occasional visitant to the 

 British Isles, is on the point of becoming extinct, if, indeed, it be 

 not already a thing of the past. The fact of a large bird thus 

 dying out apparently in our own day, has naturally excited great 

 interest, and has led to a careful investigation of all the circum- 

 stances of the case. 



In early times the principal haunts of the Great Auk appear 

 to have been the eastern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador, 

 where they existed in immense profusion. On the Newfoundland 

 fishing-banks the Great Auk was two centuries ago to be found 

 in great abundance. Its appearance was always hailed by the 

 mariner approaching that desolate coast as the first indication of 

 his having reached soundings on the fishing-banks. During the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these waters, as well as the 

 Iceland and Faroe coasts, were annually visited by hundreds of 

 ships from England, France, Spain, Holland, and Portugal ; and 

 these ships actually were accustomed to provision themselves 

 with the bodies and eggs of these birds, which they found breed- 

 ing in myriads on the low islands oft' the coast of Newfoundland. 

 Besides the fresh birds consumed by the ships' crews, many tons 

 were salted down for future use. In the space of an hour, these 

 old voyagers tell us, they could fill thirty boats with the birds. 



