260 



AVES ORDER ALCIFORMES. 



Fig 24. THE GREAT AUK 

 (Pldutus impennis). 



One of the most interesting of all the Alcce is the great auk, which was a 

 kind of gigantic razorbill, but possessing such diminutive wings that the 

 power of flight was denied to it. It has become extinct during the first half 

 of the present century, and specimens of the bird and the egg fetch large 

 prices whenever they come into the market. The great auk, as Professor 

 Newton has pointed out, owes its extinction entirely to the agency of man, 

 who hunted the bird to its destruction. It seems to have had a compara- 

 tively limited range, having been abundant in 

 Newfoundland and the adjacent shores of North 

 America and Iceland, ranging in smaller num- 

 bers to the Hebrides and the shores of 

 Northern Britain. 



The razorbill ( Aha torda) and the guillemot 

 (Uria troile) are well-known British birds, 

 which breed in vast numbers on our coasts, 

 the best-known nesting colonies being on the 

 cliffs of Flam borough and on the Fame Islands, 

 Here large numbers of the eggs are taken every 

 year, those of the guillemot presenting an end- 

 less variety of colour and marking. The black 

 guillemot (Uria yrylle) nests in the Arctic 

 regions, and in the north of Scotland and Ire- 

 land, and the rotche or little auk (Mergidus 

 alle) is a winter visitor to Great Britain, being 

 often driven far inland by stress of weather. 

 The breeding-places of the little auk have 

 been described as tenanted by countless thou- 

 sands, Admiral Beechey having stated that he saw a column of these birds 

 on the wing at one time which he estimated at four millions ! 



Our English puftin, or sea-parrot, is a representative of the group of the 

 auks which are most numerous in the North Pacific Ocean, where several 

 crested species are found. They are re- 

 markable for the coloration of the bill, 

 which is grooved in a curious fashion, 

 and exhibits bright colours, while there 

 is also a blue excrescence above the eye. 

 These ornamental features of the bird's 

 bill are a sign of the breeding-season, 

 and are shed as by a moult in the winter, 

 to be resumed in the following spring. 

 The birds of the year have quite a small 

 bill, without any of the grooving or 

 coloured ornamentation which character- 

 ises the adults. Puffins differ from the 

 other auks in their nesting habits, the 

 egg, which is white, with occasionally a 

 few indistinct markings, being placed in a rabbit burrow, or in a hole 

 tunnelled by the birds themselves. 



The gulls are divided into two families, the true gulls, or Laridce, and the 

 skuas, or Stercorariidce. The general appearance of gulls is too well known 

 to detain us long with the characters which define the order, which is admitted 

 to be closely related to the order Charadriiformes, the great group of plovers 



Fig. 25. THE PUFFIN (Fratercula 

 arctica). 



