408 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



Catesby (1754) gives the " Penguin " among the Euro- 

 pean water-fowl which he had observed to be " also inhabit- 

 ants of America, wintering in Carolina, though most of them 

 return north to breed." 



The finding of two of the left humeri of the Great Auk in 

 a shell-mound near Ormond, Fla., one by Prof. W. S. Blatch- 

 ley and the other by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, in 1902, indicates 

 that the bird went much farther south than has been generally 

 believed.^ As this shell-mound was on the bank of the Hali- 

 fax River, and several miles from the inlet, the Auks may 

 have entered this shallow inlet for the fish which were once 

 plentiful there. 



Miss Hardy says that " it will yet be conclusively proved 

 that the Great Auk was a resident the year round on the 

 coasts of New England;" and Mr. Hay regards it as probable 

 that we shall yet learn that it was a permanent resident along 

 our coast considerably farther south than Cape Cod; but it 

 will be difficult now to secure such absolute proof. The only 

 possibility lies in unearthing some long-forgotten record from 

 the mass of historical papers now extant. 



The above citations cover practically all the available evi- 

 dence of the breeding of the Great Auk on the coast of the 

 United States; and there seems to be no conclusive evidence 

 of a breeding place except at Funk Island, where many skele- 

 tons and portions of egg shells have been found. It seems 

 improbable, however, that the myriads of these birds that 

 have been seen on so many islands and in so many waters in 

 America could all have bred on this one small island, and we 

 may yet find proof that they bred on several others. 



All through the latter part of the seventeenth century the 

 banks fishermen salted down Auks by the ton. Later, the 

 merchants at Bonavista sold them to the poor by the hun- 

 dredweight, instead of pork.^ 



The taking of the birds and their eggs for food was fol- 

 lowed by a demand for their feathers, and this is what finally 

 led to their extermination. Probably the bird was nearing 



» Hay, O. P.: Auk, 1902, pp. 255-258. 



2 Tocque, Philip: Newfoundland as it Was and Is, 1877, p. 486. 



