172 



GREAT AUK. 



GAIR-FOWL. NORTHERN PEN GUEST. 



Alca impennis, PENNANT MONTAGU. BEWICK. FLEMING. 



" " SELBY. JENYNS. GOULD. TBMMINCK. 



Alca ? Impennis Wingless. 



THIS great' bird appears to belong exclusively to the 

 cxtremest polar regions, few wanderers having found their way 

 to more habitable lands; and even where it was formerly 

 known, it seems now to be extinct. 



In Europe it used to be seen on the Iceland and Ferroe 

 waters, and on the coast of Norway; so also at Spitzbergen. 

 In America, one was obtained at sea, over a fishing bank, 

 about a hundred leagues from Newfoundland; it is said to 

 have been formerly of more frequent occurrence in those 

 parts, and indeed from Labrador to Boston. In ancient 

 times the present was a Greenland species, but it is long 

 since one was seen there. 



The instances of the occurrence of the Great Auk in this 

 country have been but very few. Sir William Hooker has 

 mentioned one specimen obtained near Southwold, in the 

 county of Suffolk; Mr. Bullock another taken oh a pond 

 on the estate of Sir William Clayton, Bart., near Marlow, 

 Buckinghamshire; and Dr. Edward Moore has recorded one 

 found dead on Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel, off the 

 north coast of Devon, in the year 1829. 



In the Hebrides, one was taken at St. Kilda in the winter 

 of 1822; another in 1829: the latter escaped from confinement. 

 Mr. John Macgillivray writes, speaking of the year 1840, 

 'The Great Auk was declared by several of the inhabitants to 

 be of not unfrequent occurrence about St. Kilda, where, 



