1452 The Zoologist — November, J 868. 



Although in the foregoing account this bird is spoken of as a young 

 female, it appears from a photograph sent me by Professor Newton to 

 be very nearly adult, and decidedly older than the specimen in the 

 Newcastle Museum. 



All that concerns an expiring race is important. Dr. Burkitt was 

 persuaded by Dr. Ball to present his specimen, the latest survivor of 

 its species in this country, to the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, 

 where, the last time Mr. Newton saw it, "it was carefully enshrined 

 in the professorial sanctum, in company with Brian Boru's harp, and 

 some other palladia of the sister island." 



It will be observed that this great auk was taken in the month of 

 May, at the very time when it should have been preparing to revisit 

 its breeding-station: it was in St. George's Channel, half-starved and 

 probably unable to make head against the current, its case being 

 precisely similar to the Lundv specimen five years before. 



Thompson says that Mr. R. Davis, of Clonmell, afterwards ascer- 

 tained that a second great auk was procured on the coast of Water- 

 ford, about the same time as the one already noticed, but, falling into 

 ignorant hands, it was not preserved; but of this bird Dr. Burkitt has 

 grave doubts, believing it and his own to be one and the same speci- 

 men, which would account for the misapprehension into which Mr. 

 Thompson has fallen in attributing the presentation of Dr. Burkitt's 

 specimen to Mr. Robert Davis, of Clonmell, in place of the real 

 donor, Mr. Francis Davis, of Waterford, the former being an ornitho- 

 logist of some repute, and in former years a contributor to the 

 ' Zoologist.' 



Thompson says (Nat. Hist, of Ireland, vol. iii. p. 239) that the Rev. 

 Joseph Stopford, in February, 1844, communicated a note to Dr. 

 Harvey, of Cork, stating, but without any mention of date, that one of 

 these birds had been " obtained on the long strand of Castle Freke 

 (in the west of the county of Cork), having been water-soaked in a 

 storm." 



Thompson had "little doubt that two great auks were seen in 

 Belfast Bay on the 23rd of September, 1845, by H. Bell, a wild-fowl 

 shooter. He saw two large birds, the size of great northern divers, 

 but with much smaller wings. He imagined they might be young 

 birds of that species, until he remarked that their heads and bills were 

 'much more clumsy' than those of the Colymbus. They kept almost 

 constantly diving, and went to an extraordinary distance each time 

 with great rapidity." 



