480 



BEAK. Lower margin ... ... ... ... 2 in. 



,, Greatest depth from culmen to lower 



border T75 ,, 



,, Distance from proximal furrow on upper 

 segment to the nearest of the 



distal series ... ... ... ... 1 ,, 



Gape of mouth to tip of beak .... ... 4'35 ,, 



Median sharp ridge on lower margin of 



beak 0'5 



TARSO-METATARSUS 2'75 



OUTER TOE 2-5 ,, 



MIDDLE TOE... ... ... ... ... ... 3 ,, 



INNER TOE ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 



TOE-NAILS. Middle and outer O5 



,, Inner... ... ... ... ... 0'35 



GREATEST DIAMETER ACROSS WEBS 3'5 



HOW THE GREAT AUK BECAME EXTIRPATED. 



The literature dealing with the extirpation of this re- 

 markable bird is indeed voluminous, and many are the 

 different opinions held as to how the decrease in numbers 

 began to set in. It seems hardly sufficient to say that 

 because the largest of our Auks, or so-called ' Penguins ' of 

 the Northern hemisphere, was not endowed with the power 

 of flight, it therefore was so handicapped in the fierce 

 struggle for existence that it was unable to cope with its 

 natural environment and so, becoming gradually reduced in 

 numbers, at length disappeared as a living species. This 

 slow process of extinction seems all the less likely when one 

 considers the numbers of other flightless or feeble-flighted 

 ' Divers ' which, perforce, are periodically destroyed in multi- 

 tudes by hurricanes, preyed upon by many enemies of the 

 deep, swept from the rocks by volcanic and other seismic 

 disturbances, and yet these species still exist, some in vast 

 assemblages. 



Were the Great Auk a polar-breeding species, its fate 

 might have been far different, but selecting as it did low, 

 flat islands in Temperate or, to a less extent, in Sub-arctic 

 seas, its breeding-haunts were easily negotiable by whalers, 

 fishermen, skin-traders, &c. It is important to bear in 

 mind that the Great Auk was a large bird, hardly inferior 

 in size to a goose, and so worth killing and salting down 



