GREAT AUK. 443 



a name probably given it by some one of those foreigners, whom 

 either choice or necessity drew into this secure region. This bird 

 is above four feet in length, from the bill to the extremities of its 

 feet; its wings are, in proportion to its size, very short, so that 

 they can hardly poise or support the weight of its very large body. 

 His legs, neck, and bill are extremely long; it lays the egg, 

 which, according to the account given me, exceeds that of a 

 goose, no less than the latter exceeds the egg of a hen, close 

 by the sea mark, being incapable, on account of its bulk, to soar 

 up to the cliffs. It makes its appearance in the month of July. 

 The St. Kildians do not receive an annual visit from this strange 

 bird as from all the rest in the list, and from many more. It 

 keeps at a distance from them, they know not where, for a course 

 of years. From what land or ocean it makes its uncertain 

 voyages to their isle is perhaps a mystery. A gentleman who 

 had been in the West Indies informed me that, according to the 

 description given of him, he must be the penguin of that clime, a 

 fowl that points out the proper soundings to seafaring people." 

 Another work, entitled 'A Description of St. Kilda, by the Rev. 

 Alexander Buchan, late minister there/ was published in 1773 

 by his daughter, who states in her preface that her "deceased 

 father thought fit to write the description which he gathered 

 partly by good informations and partly by his own observations, 

 he having been their first settled minister, and lived amongst 

 them twenty-four years till his death." We also learn from her 

 that he was sent by the Church of Scotland to St. Kilda in 1705, 

 and that he died there of fever in 1730. During that interval he 

 appears to have amused himself by copying out with his own hand 

 'A Description of St. Kilda, alias Hirta,' every word of which 

 seems to have been pirated from Martin's two volumes. Like Sir 

 Robert Sibbald when condensing what Sir George M'Kenzie had 

 previously written of the bird, Mr Buchan thus treats Martin: 

 " The sea fowls are first, Gairfowl, the stateliest and largest of all 

 the fowls here." And so the ornithological world is now left 

 lamenting his incapacity to make a better use of his lengthened 

 residence. 



Following these older records of non-scientific writers, the first 

 mention of the Great Auk in any work on British natural 

 history seems to occur in Pennant's 'British Zoology,' which 

 was published a few years later than Macaulay's work. The 



