GREAT AUK. 483 



1829, a pair, male and female, were killed on the Geir- 

 fugle-Skjcer, or Great Auk Skar, whilst courageously (Jp- 

 fending their two eggs : they usually lay but one. These 

 birds are now in the possession of the Apothecary Mech- 

 lenburg, at Flensborg. Still later, in 1832, at least ten 

 were killed on a Skar near to Iceland. In the year 1834, 

 three birds and three eggs were brought to Copenhagen 

 from that island. In 1844, two eggs and two birds also 

 reached this city from the same quarter. People whose 

 word is to be relied on, Kjerb oiling tells us, have informed 

 him that birds have subsequently been seen oif the coast 

 of Iceland ; but although a large reward has been offered 

 for both birds and skins, no one has had the courage to 

 land upon the Skar. 



In summer plumage the bill is black, very strong, com- 

 pressed, and marked with several lateral furrows ; the 

 irides reddish-brown ; between the beak and the eye an 

 oval patch of white ; head, chin, and throat, hind neck, 

 back, wings, and tail black; the ends of the secondary 

 wing-feathers white ; breast, and all the under surface of 

 the body white; legs, toes, and their membranes black. 

 The whole length of the bird is thirty-two inches; the 

 wing from the wrist to the end of the longest quill-feather 

 seven inches ; of the longest feather alone but four inches 

 and a quarter. 



Dr. Fleming's specimen, obtained in winter, had the chin, 

 throat, and front of the neck white. Mr. Fox, in refer- 

 ence to the specimen in the Newcastle Museum, says, "Our 

 bird is apparently a young one, the neck black, spotted, or 

 mottled with white ; upper mandible of the bill with one 

 large sulcus at the base, none at the tip." 



ii 2 



