The Zoologist — November, 1868. 1445 



breast, i. e. a bare spot from which the feathers have fallen off with 

 the heat in hatching ; its egg is twice as big as that of a Solan goose, 

 and is variously spotted, black, green, and dark ; it comes without 

 regard to any wind, appears the first of May, and goes away about 

 the middle of June." This account is very good, considering when 

 it was written, but it contains some singular errors : the " bare spot," 

 if it existed at all, could not have been from the feathers falling off 

 the bird's breast with the heat in hatching, since the Alcadae do not 

 cover their eggs with their breasts. Then " above the size of a Solan 

 goose, of a black colour, red about the eyes, a large white spot under 

 each eye," is a sentence containing four mistakes : the great auk is 

 a little less than the Solan goose, it was as much white as black, the 

 white spot was over rather than under the eye, and probably the 

 irides themselves were dark brown, as in the razorbill, little auk, 

 black guillemot, &c, which I have had several opportunities of 

 examining in the flesh. It is rather amusing to note the difference 

 among the glass eyes in our stuffed great auks, which are of every 

 shade between coal-black and bright red ; and so, in their pictures, 

 Lewin, Edwards, and others, have given the great auk red eyes, but 

 subsequent authors have painted them black. 



The formerly-known breeding-place at St. Kilda has not, in my 

 opinion, been satisfactorily ascertained to be abandoned : hardly any 

 naturalists have of late years visited that desolate spot. * The 

 Hebrides are some little distance from the mainland of Scotland, and 

 on turning to the map one finds St. Kilda to be twenty leagues from 

 them ; in fact small maps do not take it in. 



Sir Wm. Milner, when in St. Kilda, was shown the precise spot 

 where the great auk had its home ; it was at one extremity of St. Kilda 

 proper. Martin makes no mention of this ; and we might infer from 

 what he says that Soa, an adjacent island (too small to be marked on 

 the map), was the breeding-place, Stakley being mentioned as the prin- 

 cipal rock for the Solan geese, and the dominions of the oily fulmar 

 being a terrific precipice, 1300 feet high, and supposed, says Bishop 

 Stanley, to be the loftiest precipitous face of rock in Britain. To 

 St. Kilda proper, then, we may presume, without regard to any wind, 

 the great auk annually returned about the 1st of May, to perform the 

 duties of reproduction. 



* Since this was written Captain Elwes 1ms been there : he showed a drawing of 

 the great auk to (he people, some of whom appeared to recognize it. 



