PTEROCLIDAE 3 2 I 





beak to the eye, and another crossing both mandibles in the 

 adult only. The tips of the secondaries are white, forming an 

 alar bar, the feet are black. The throat and cheeks are white in 

 the winter and immature plumage. A. impennis, the extinct 

 Great Auk or G-arefowl, inhabited the North Atlantic, chiefly 

 in the neighbourhood of Iceland and Newfoundland, but ap- 

 parently never reached north of the Arctic Circle. Remains 

 have been found in the kitchen-middens of Denmark, North and 

 West Scotland, and North and South Ireland ; in a cave on the 

 coast of Durham ; and abundantly on Funk Island in the New- 

 foundland Seas, where the bird was called " Penguin " ; that name 

 being subsequently transferred to the Spheniscidae. The last two 

 living examples were obtained at the isle of Eldey, off Iceland, in 

 1844, while 1812, 1821, and 1834 are the last dates of capture 

 in Orkney, St. Kilda, and Ireland respectively, allowing for a 

 possible instance in St. Kilda (Borrera) in 1840. This species, 

 extirpated chiefly by the persecution of fishermen, but subsequently 

 by collectors, resembled a flightless Razorbill, though double the 

 size ; it had no white stripes on the head or bill, but shewed a 

 large white patch before each eye. The huge egg was white or 

 buff, with scattered round spots or plentiful fine scrawls of 

 black or brown ; about seventy of these eggs, and a somewhat 

 greater number of birds, existing at present in collections. 1 



Mergulus alle, the Little Auk or Rotche, occurring on 

 migration in Britain, and occasionally in the Canaries, Azores, 

 and New Jersey, breeds from Greenland and the Kara Sea to 

 North Iceland. It is black above and white below, with a spot 

 over the eye, streaks on the scapulars, and an alar bar also of 

 white ; the throat is black in summer only. The short, broad, 

 arched bill is black, the feet are brownish. The single greenish- 

 or bluish-white egg, often shewing faint rufous markings, is de- 

 posited in a deep crevice of a cliff, or among boulders on beaches. 



As regards fossil forms, Uria has been found in the Miocene 

 of Maine and North Carolina, and in the Pliocene of Tuscany. 



Of the second or Pteroclo-Columbine group of Charadriiform 

 Birds (p. 2 6 8) the Old World Sub-Order PTEROCLES contains only 



Fam. IX. Pteroclidae, or the Sand-Grouse, equally interesting 

 as regards their structure and their habits. Originally considered 



1 For the literature, see A. Newton, Diet. Birds, 1893, pp. 220-221, 303-308. 

 VOL. IX Y 



