72 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



able for their enormous number on the northern bird-rookeries, and for the variability 

 in color of the single large and pear-shaped egg, which may be found from nearly uni- 

 form white to deep sea-green, heavily spotted and singularly streaked with black and 

 brown. The accompanying cut represents a puzzling variety, the so-called spectacled 

 guillemot (17. ringvia), which is identical with the common species except in possess- 

 ing a white ring round the eyes, and a white streak behind them running backward 

 above the ear-coverts. While rather scarce, and not occurring in all places where the 

 common guillemot breeds, it, on the other hand, is never found except where the latter 

 occurs. The status of the variety is therefore not settled, though most ornithologists, 

 perhaps, at present regard it as a mere individual variation. In regard to the cut, it 

 may be remarked that the shoulder feathers ought to be more uniform black. 



Next in order come the true auks, both characterized by the transverse grooves on 

 the bill, and both confined to the North Atlantic Ocean. The first is the razor-bill, 

 (Alca tordd), the other the great auk (Plaulus impennis), with its many names, the 

 gejr or gare-fowl of the Icelanders, the northern penguin, the celebrated 'wing- 

 less bird,' which formerly inhabited both shores of the Atlantic, in its northern tem- 

 perate parts, but, contrary to the popular notion, not the Arctic Ocean. This famous 

 bird, famous because of its tragic fate, bred numerously on Newfoundland and on the 

 Funk Islands during the last century ; in 1844 the last survivors of the last colony in 

 Iceland were killed. Now its skin and bones and eggs are regarded as the most 

 precious treasures of the museums ; and long monographical accounts are published, 

 showing the exact number of these relics, the museums in which they are found, and 

 the history of each single specimen as far as it can be traced. The last list (1884) is 

 by Professor W. Blasius, who enumerates 76 authenticated skins or mounted birds, 68 

 eggs, 9 more or less complete skeletons, besides numerous skulls and detached bones. 

 Half the skins and most of the bones are probably of American origin, but not more 

 than five skins are in American museums ; among these is the one which Mr. Robert 

 L. Stuart recently bought for $625, and presented to the museum in New York. The 

 gare-fowl is of special interest, since it is the only one of the order which is known to 

 have been deprived of the power of flight, and which therefore became extermi- 

 nated by the agency of man. It was a kind of representative, in northern waters, of 

 the flightless Antarctic penguins, by which name it was principally known on the 

 American side of the Atlantic during the last century, penguin being probably only a 

 corrupt derivative of pin-wing, though usually derived from the Latin pinguis, fat. 

 We need not here repeat the differences of the true penguins, but will only call atten- 

 tion to the fact that the great auk was provided with normal remiges, and that it 

 was only the smallness of the wings which made them unfit for flight. 



The black guillemots ( Cepphus) form a small group of Arctic birds which in their 

 history exhibit too little to detain us further. Through a number of rather obscurely 

 known forms (JBrachyramphus, etc.,) peculiar to the Pacific Ocean, we are led to the 

 curiously ornamented pigmy auks of the same ocean, conspicuous among other charac- 

 ters for their white-colored eyes ; and to the much larger sea-parrots or puffins. Of the 

 former may be mentioned the least auk (Simorhynchus pusillus), a beautiful little 

 sea-bird, not so large as a robin, and with a peculiar knob on top of the bill near its 

 base, which is shed annually when the breeding season is over. Two other species 

 of the same genus (S. pygmceus and cristatettus) are somewhat larger, but look 

 very odd from the red or orange bill, the many white crests and moustaches, and 

 the peculiar tuft of feathers on the forehead, bent forward in exactly the same man- 



