GKEAT AUK 481 



for food. It seems evident that it was through the active 

 agency of Man, who made special raids on it, that this 

 ill-fated bird was hurried to its doom ; and, when the birds 

 grew scarce as marketable commodities, it is certain that 

 the last of the species were killed to supply the wants of 

 museum and private collectors, and thus the bird became 

 totally extinct. 



That the Great Auk did not become scarce by slow 

 degrees like many other now extinct creatures, is a fact well 

 acknowledged by many ornithologists, and here I quote 

 the words of Professor Newton on the subject : " In Ice- 

 land there is the testimony of a score of witnesses, taken 

 down from their lips by one of the most careful naturalists 

 who ever lived, the late John Wolley, that the latest sur- 

 vivors of the species were caught and killed by expeditions 

 expressly organised with the view of supplying the demands 

 of caterers to the various museums of Europe. 



" In like manner the fact is incontestable that its breed- 

 ing-stations in the western part of the Atlantic were for 

 three centuries regularly visited and devastated with the 

 combined objects of furnishing food or bait to the fishermen 

 from very early days, and its final extinction, foretold in 

 1792 by Cart wright (Labrador, iii. p. 55), was due, accord- 

 ing to Sir Richard Bonnycastle (Newfoundland in 1842, i. 

 p. 232), to the ruthless trade in its eggs and skin." 



" No doubt that one of the chief stations of this species 

 in Icelandic waters disappeared .... through volcanic 

 action, and that the destruction of the old Geirfuglasker 

 drove some at least of the birds which frequented it to a 

 rock nearer the mainland, where they were exposed to 

 danger from which they had in their former abode been 

 comparatively free ; yet on this rock (Eldey= fire-island) they 

 were "specially hunted down" whenever opportunity offered, 

 until the stock there was wholly extirpated in 1844, and 

 whether any remained elsewhere must be deemed most 

 doubtful." 1 



With reference to the disappearance of the Great Auk 

 from Icelandic waters, Mr. Saunders gives the following 

 summarised account : " Off the south-west of Iceland, 

 which has famished the majority of the skins and eggs 

 existing in collections, there were three skerries on which 



1 For a detailed and interesting account of this subject the reader is 

 referred to the ' Ibis,' 1861, pp. 374-399 ; also to Grieve, " The Great 



Auk," &c. 



81 



