The Zoologist — October, 1869. 1855 



most likely to hold the great auk at the present day. As Mr. Gurney 

 ('Zoologist,' S.S., p. 1640) appears under the impression that the 

 mummy of the great auk forwarded to the British Museum by Mr. 

 J. M. Jones,* President of the Nova Scotia Institute of Natural 

 Science, was " found by the Bishop of Newfoundland while on a 

 missionary cruise "at Funk Island," I will take the liberty of tran- 

 scribing his lordship's letter to Mr. Jones as it appears in the 

 ' Transactions of the N. Scotia Institute of Nat. Science," the more 

 so as I wish to make a few remarks thereon. The italics are mine : — 



" St. John's, N. F., August 10th, 1864. 

 " My dear Sir, — I am much pleased that the mummy arrived in 

 a good state of preservation. How long it has been emhalmed or 

 eiiiombed in the ice I cannot of course tell, but I understand the 

 different specimens were found several feet (at least four) below the 

 surface, and under ice which never melts. They were all found on 

 the Funk Islands, but on which side I am not able now to discover, 

 as the person who dug them up is not at present, I believe, in St. John's. 

 He was sent, or went there to gather the guano or bird manure on 

 speculation, with strict injunctions to procure, if possible, the bones 

 or skeletons of the extinct bird. In this he succeeded better than in 

 his own business, and probably if he had known the value attached to 

 these specimens by naturalists he might have turned them to better 

 account than the guano. One specimen I sent to Mr. Newton, and 

 you saw by his letter how highly it was prized. Another was sent to 

 Agassiz, and the third I have been enabled through the kindness of 

 our Governor to forward to you : and this is the most perfect of the 

 three, or certainly more perfect than the one I sent to Mr. Newton ; 

 the other I did not see. 



" I think it very likely more specimens might be found, as no per- 

 sons are hving on the island ; and it is only lately that any attempt 

 has been made to discover and preserve the skeleton. 



" Your's faithfully, 



" Ed. Newfoundland." 



* Of this specimen Professor Newton writes me that " it was originally intended to 

 have been sent to me, but that having sailed for Spitsbergen just before the bishop's 

 letter to me reached England, I was unable to let him have an answer for many 

 months. I wrote to him immediately on my return home, and shortly after was inex- 

 pressibly mortified to find that not having heard from me fjr so long, he imagined 



