Great Auk 403 



with one or both of the mandibles transversely or obliquely grooved, while the 

 other, known as the Dovekie or Sea Dove, has the bill very short and broad 

 and is otherwise very distinct. 



Great Auk, Garefowl. Of these the Great Auk, or Garefowl (Plautus 

 impennis], was in very many respects the most interesting, its sad and untimely 

 fate having invested it with a pathetic not to say melancholy history. It was not 

 only the largest of the family, attaining a length of from twenty-eight to thirty 

 inches, but was the only North American bird incapable of flight, its wings being 

 so much reduced as to be incapable of sustaining it in the air, although made use 

 of in propelling it through the water. In coloration of plumage it was uniform 

 black above and pure white beneath, with a broad patch of white on the wings, 

 while in summer the chin, throat, neck, and sides of the head became velvety 

 dark brown, and a large oval patch of white appeared between the bill and eyes. 

 The home of the Great Auk was the North Atlantic south of the Arctic Circle, 

 ranging on the American side from Labrador to Virginia, or perhaps excep- 

 tionally as far as Florida, where bones have recently been found in aboriginal 

 shell heaps, and on the European side from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay. The 

 last one appears to have been killed on the American side in 1842, and on the 

 European side about 1844. The following account was written by Thomas 

 Nuttall, one of America's pioneer ornithologists, long before their extermina- 

 tion: "Deprived of the use of wings, degraded as it were from the feathered 

 ranks, and almost numbered among the amphibious monsters of the deep, the 

 Auk seems condemned to dwell alone in the desolate and forsaken regions of 

 the earth; yet aided by all-bountiful nature, it finds means to subsist, and tri- 

 umphs over all the physical ills of its condition. As a diver it remains unrivaled, 

 proceeding beneath the water, its most natural element, almost with the veloc- 

 ity of many birds through the air. It thus contrived to vary its situation with 

 the season, migrating for short distances, like the finny prey upon which it feeds. 

 In the Faroe Isles, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland these birds dwell 

 and breed in great numbers. They nest among the steepest cliffs of islands, 

 remote from the shore, taking possession of caverns and clefts of rocks; or 

 they dig for themselves deep burrows in which they lay their only egg, about 

 the size of that of the Swan, whitish yellow, marked with numerous lines and 

 spots of black which present to the imagination the idea of Chinese characters. 

 They are so unprolific that if their egg be taken away, they lay no other that 

 season." 



The Great Auk appears to have bred at one time in great numbers on St. Kilda, 

 various islands and skerries of the Hebrides, as well as at Orkney and Shetland, 

 and was rarely met with along the shores of Norway and Sweden. In prehistoric 

 times it frequented the fjords of Denmark, as its remains have been found in the 

 Danish kitchenmiddens, but its last stand on the European side was made on 

 several small rocky islands near Iceland, from which the last pair was taken, as 

 above stated, in the summer of 1844. Funk Island, off the Newfoundland 

 coast, appears to have been the last home of this bird in America. Here they 

 were found nesting in great numbers when the island was first visited about 1534, 



