404 The Plover-like Birds 



and during the succeeding period of three centuries they were subjected to con- 

 tinual persecution and eventually disappeared at about the same time as on the 

 other side of the Atlantic. As they were helpless on land they were easily killed 

 by the fishermen and hunters, who visited the island for the purpose, and it is of 

 record that they were driven aboard vessels in hundreds across sails or planks 

 stretched from the gunwales to the shore. Their eggs were also taken for table 

 use, but it was not apparently until some one thought of killing them for their 

 feathers that they were really doomed. Mr. Lucas, who visited Funk Island in 

 1887, found indications of the stone pens in which the birds were confined before 

 slaughter, as well as heaps of bones where their bodies had evidently been thrown 

 after being plucked. Probably within a comparatively few years after this form 

 of persecution was begun the last were driven from the island, and being unable 

 to establish themselves in another suitable location, were pushed to the wall. 

 All that remains to-day of the Great Auk are about seventy skins, sixty-five eggs, 

 and some twenty-five more or less perfect but composite skeletons, that is, skele- 

 tons made up from the bones of many different individuals. 



The Razor-billed Auk (Alca torda) is a much smaller bird than its relative, 

 being only fifteen to eighteen inches in length. In summer the plumage is sooty 

 black above, brownish on the fore neck, and white below, with a white wing-bar 

 and a line from the eye to the bill, the latter crossed in the middle by a white 

 band. The winter coloration is similar except that the sides and front of the 

 neck are white. The wings are well developed and it flies strongly and w y ell. 

 The Razor-bill occurs on the coasts and islands of the North Atlantic, ranging 

 south on the American side to southern New England or occasionally as far as 

 Virginia and North Carolina, and on the European side as far as Gibraltar; it 

 breeds mainly to the northward. Their lives are passed for the most part on 

 the open sea, on which they sit high and float buoyantly like a Duck, and they 

 also fly like diving Ducks with rapidly beating wings and in a line , one^bird behind 

 another so close as to be almost touching. Their food consists largely of small 

 fish which they secure by diving, using at the time their wings as well as their 

 feet for propulsion. At the nesting period they congregate often by thousands, 

 together with Guillemots and Puffins, about some bald headland or precipitous 

 rocky cliff, and deposit the single, large, handsome egg on the bare ledge of rock. 

 Both birds take part in incubation, sitting over the egg in an upright position 

 and with the head facing the wind. 



The Dovekie, or Sea Dove (Alle alle), is known by its small size, attaining a 

 length of only about eight inches, and by its short, broad bill in which the angle 

 of the chin is much nearer the tip than the nostril. The plumage is black above, 

 with the secondaries tipped and the scapulars streaked with white and white 

 below, the flanks being striped with dusky. It is a native of the Arctic Ocean 

 and the coasts of the North Atlantic, coming south in winter as far as the Azores. 

 The single bluish white egg is deposited on a rocky ledge or crevice in a cliff. 



