ALCID.E - TIIK AUKS — PLAUTUS. 



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bill, and entirely refusing food. When in Liilmidor, Audubon was iTiformed that this 

 Auk was tlu'u livinj,' on rocky islands oft' the soutlieastern end of Newfoundland ; but 

 lie was not able to obtain further contirniatory evidence on this point. Hut as a few 

 of these birds are known to have been alive at the time this statement was made, 

 it may have been true, as we have no data as to the exact time of the disajj^earanco 

 of this bird from American waters. 



This Auk is said to have been an unrivalled swimmer and diver. One that was 

 jtursued by Mr. Bullock, among the Orkney Islands, north of Scotland, near Papa 

 Westra, distanced a six-oared boat, liuffon mentions, in regard to tliis bird, that it 

 was rarely if ever seen out of soundings, and that its presence was regarded as an 

 infallible indication of the near presence of land. 



Dr. Fleming refers to a bird of this siiecies as having been obtained at St. Kilda — 

 one of the Outer Hebrides — in the winter of 1822 ; another was takcMi alive there in 

 1820, but managed to escape from its captors. Mr. Macgillivray visited these islands 

 in 1840, and was informed by the inliabitants that the Great Auk was of not infre- 

 rpient occurrence about St. Kilda ; but tliat it liad not l)een known to breed there for 

 many years back. A sijecimen of this bird was picked up dead near Lundy Island, 

 off the coast of Devonshire, in 1829. In 1834 one Avas taken off tlie coast of Water- 

 ford, Ireland, and is now in the collection of Trinity College, Dublin. This is the 

 last specimen known to have been obtained in British waters; that referred to l)y 

 Mr. Edwards Iiaving been captured at sea, over a fishing-bank, about three liundred 

 miles from Newfoundland. 



There is more or less disagreement in regard to some of the habits of this bird. 

 Yarrell states that it was rarely seen out of water ; but if this had been true, how it 

 came to be exterminated would be liard to explain. Tliat "the female lays her single 

 large egg close above sea-tide mark " is not confirmed by information obtained by 

 I'rofessor Newton, according to which this bird appeared to have nested fartlier from 

 tlie water than do most of its class of divers. Jlost writers agree that it laid b\it 

 a single egg, and that when attacked it made no resistance, unless taken in the hand ; 

 but Yarrell states that in 1829 a pair — male and female — were killed on the Geir- 

 fugle-Skj(Er whilst courageously defending their two eggs. 



In a work descriptive of "Newfoundland and its Missionaries," printed in Halifax 

 b}' Dakin & Jletcalf, and publislied by the Wcsleyan Book-room in 1866, tlie follow- 

 ing reference is made to the Great Auk : " Half a century ago the I'enguin was very 

 plenty. It is a liandsome bird, about the size of a Goose, with a coal-black. head and 

 back, a white belly, and a milk-white spot under the right eye. They cannot fly well, 

 tlieir wings are more like fins. They have on tlieir bodies short feathers and down. 

 The Penguin is now but seldom seen ; sucli destruction of the bird was made for the 

 sake of its feathers, that it is now all but extinct " (p. 64). 



Mr. George A. Boardman having seen the above paragrajdi, and meeting its author, 

 questioned him more particularly about the Penguin, and obtained a few further 

 details. At the time of his residence in Newfoundland he was a Mtithodist mission- 

 ary stationed on the coast, not far from the Funk or Fogo Island, between the years 

 1818 and 1823. He saw the Penguins during the whole of his stay in the island in 

 considerable number, and frequently lectured the inhabitants for their cruelty in 

 destroying them merely for their feathers. It was quite common for the boys 

 to keep them tied by the leg as pets. 



In a work on " New England Rarities," by John Josselyn, Gent., London, 1G72, 

 occurs tlm following reference to the Auk: "Tlie Wobble is an ill sliaped Fowl, 

 having no long Feathers in their Pinions, which is the reason they cannot fly, not 



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