GKEAT AUK 473 



Mr. Saunders states that "no other British specimens 

 are in existence; but Mr. Henry Evans, during his visits 

 to the St. Kilda group, has collected strong evidence that 

 about 1840 a bird was secured on the grassy slopes of 

 Stack-an-Armin, and was killed three days afterwards as a 

 witch, in consequence of a storm which frightened its 

 captors. Kemains have been found in Caithness, Argyll- 

 shire, some old sea-caves in Durham, and latterly in several 

 districts of Ireland, 3 especially near Waterford " ; and on the 

 coasts of Antrim (figs. 56 and 57). 



Concerning its general habits, it may be remarked that 

 the Great Auk was absolutely unable to rise on the wing, 



close to the cliffs between Ballymacaw and Brownston Head. It 

 had been previously observed swimming about the locality by a man 

 named David Hardy. A fisherman named Kirby easily captured it by 

 enticing it with sprats thrown near his boat, and finally succeeded in 

 securing it in his landing-net. The bird lived in captivity for four 

 months, though apparently in a semi-starved condition when first 

 obtained. Refusing its food at first, potatoes and milk were forced 

 down its gullet, after which it fed freely. Fish, preferably trout 

 swallowed entire, was its chief diet. The bird assumed a very stately, 

 erect attitude, had a strange habit of shaking its head, especially when 

 food was offered it, and is said to have been rather fierce. It died on 

 September 7th, 1834, and was presented by Dr. Burkitt to the Museum 

 of Zoology, Trinity College, Dublin, in 1844. 



3 Bones of the Great Auk were obtained at Whitepark Bay, co. 

 Antrim, with human remains believed to be those of the earliest 

 Neolithic inhabitants of Ireland. In the accumulations of the same age 

 the bones of horses, dogs or wolves, geese, ducks, and gulls, were found, 

 together with stone-hammers, flint-flakes, and edible shell-fishes. The 

 Great Auk in those remote ages appears to have been a common 

 species about this and other parts of the Irish coast. (G. E. Barrett- 

 Hamilton, ' Irish Naturalist,' 1896, p. 121. Vide also W. J. Knowles' 

 ' Third Eeport on the Pre-historic Remains from the Sand-hills of the 

 Coasts of Ireland,' Proc. Royal Irish Acad. (3), vol. iii, No. 4, pp. 650-663, 

 December, 1895, and vol. i, No. 5, 1891, ibid, also ' Irish Naturalist,' 

 1899, p. 4.) 



Mr. Ussher obtained several Great Auks' bones from the kitchen- 

 middens on the Waterford coast. They were identified beyond doubt 

 by Prof. Newton and Dr. Hans Gadow, of Cambridge. Many of these 

 bones were found on or near the old surface where this cropped up, 

 and with them were associated bones of domestic animals, fowl, and 

 Red deer. Burned stones, layers of charcoal, and shells, were also 

 present. Mr. Ussher mentions finding remains of no less than six 

 Great Auks in the same group of sand-hills, which seems as though 

 numbers of the birds were consumed as food ('Irish Naturalist,' 1897, 

 p. 208, also 1899, p. 1, ibid.). Quite recently Mr. Ussher records finding 

 more Auks' bones on the coast of co. Clare ; other objects found there 

 were burned pot-boilers, sand-stone slabs used for hearths, multitudes 



