1446 The Zoologist — November, 1868. 



Martin says : — " Whither the fowls fly (and where the great auk 

 spends the winter), the inhabitants are utterly ignorant of. * * * 

 Every fowl lays an egg three different times (except the Gairfowl and 

 fulmar, which lay but once)." (' Voyage to St. Kilda,' pp. 64, 6-0). 



The eggs of the sea-fowl are found to be of an astringent quality. 

 The inhabitants of St. Kilda used to preserve them in stone pyramids, 

 scattering the burnt ashes of turf under and about them, to defend 

 them from the air, dryness being their only preservative ; the dried 

 bodies they use for fuel, and with the remnant of their " giben"* feasts 

 they strew the soil to manure it. I mention these things because there 

 is every probability that the last generation of St. Kildians "made 

 away with " several great auks for food. 



Macaulay (1758) says: — "The St. Kildians do not receive an 

 annual visit from this strange bird (the garefowl) as from all the rest. 

 It keeps at a distance from them, they know not where, for a course 

 of years." Further on he speaks of the garefowl as "an absolute 

 stranger, I am apt to believe, in every other part of Scotland." In 

 short, even as far back as the time of Macaulay, the great auk was 

 considered an exceedingly rare bird. 



Mr. John Gatcombe, to whom 1 am under many obligations, has 

 consulted, on my behalf, a copy of Dr. Ed. Moore's 'Catalogue of the 

 Web-footed Birds of Devonshire,' contained in the Library at Ply- 

 mouth. The original account of the great auk found on Lundy 

 Island, which has been quoted into so many books, is as follows : — 



" 'Alca impennis.' 'Great Auk' or 'Penguin.' — Mr. Gosling, of 

 Leigh am, informed me that a specimen of this bird was picked up 

 dead, »enr\ Lundy Island, in the year 1829, and Prof. Jameson (?) 

 suggests that it might have been the one which had been obtained by 

 Mr. Stevenson in St. Kilda, and escaped from the Lighthouse of 

 Pladda, about that time, when on its way to Edinburgh." 



Mr. T. E. Gosling is more than once referred to as an ornithologist 

 in Bellamy's ' Natural History of South Devon.' This Catalogue, 

 written subsequently to Moore's, does not even allude to the great 

 auk, from which we may infer Mr. Bellamy partly discredited the 

 specimen said to have been washed ashore at Lundy Island. 



The following interesting extract is from a letter written to the 



* That is, the fat of the fowls, their sovereign remedy for disease, and beloved 

 catholicou at all times. 



f Either on the island or in the channel somewhere off the island, but which is 

 not clear. 



