GREAT AUK. 445 



The next record of any consequence as to the occurrence of the 

 species in Britain appears in the supplement to Montagu's 

 Ornithological Dictionary, published in 1813, in which it is stated 

 that Mr Bullock, who visited the Orkney islands about a year 

 previously, had been told by the natives that one male only had 

 made its appearance for many years; it had regularly visited the 

 island of Papa Westra. The female had been killed just before 

 Mr Bullock's arrival, but the male was seen by him and unsuccess- 

 fully chased for several hours by a six-oared boat, the speed of 

 which, in the water, was as nothing compared to that of the bird. 

 Dr Latham, in his ' General History of Birds/ Vol. X., in referring 

 to this incident, narrates that as soon as Mr Bullock had left, the 

 poor bird, confiding in the native boatmen, suffered them to 

 approach so near as to knock it down with an oar, a lucky stroke 

 which secured for the British Museum its finest Garefowl, the 

 specimen (which realized <15 5s 6d at Bullock's sale) being now 

 preserved in the National Collection. To these particulars Pro- 

 fessor Newton (Nat. Hist. Review, 1865) adds: "Another account, 

 furnished us by a relative of the lady who transmitted the bird to 

 Mr Bullock, states that one of the two which about this time 

 frequented the ' Auk Craig,' on Papa Westra, was killed by some 

 boys or lads with stones, and that it was not got at the time, but 

 sometime afterwards washed on shore. The excellent condition 

 of the specimen now in the 'British Gallery' of the British 

 Museum leads us to suppose, independently of Latham's testimony, 

 that if this story be correct it refers to the female bird." 



About ten years after Bullock's experience in Orkney, namely, 

 in 1821 or 1822, the late Professor Fleming had an opportunity of 

 seeing and describing a live specimen of the Great Auk, while visit- 

 ing the island of Scalpa, at the entrance to East Loch Tarbert, in 

 Harris. This bird had been captured by Mr M'Lellan, tacksman of 

 Scalpa, sometime before, off St. Kilda. It was presented to Mr 

 Robert Stevenson, civil engineer, and taken on board the lighthouse 

 yacht, but afterwards, while being indulged by its considerate owner 

 with a swim in the sea, restrained by a cord fastened to one leg, 

 it made its escape. One of Dr Fleming's personal friends,, the 

 late Mr James Wilson of Woodville, who was much interested in 

 the history of the Garefowl, writes as follows, in a highly graphic 

 and interesting contribution to the North British Review for May, 

 1853 : " So unfrequent has this great sea-bird become of late years 



