NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 391 
history has been attempted by Mr. Symington Grieve in the 
handsomely-printed volume before us. 
To a considerable extent, no doubt, the labours of the author 
have been lightened by the previously-published researches of 
John Wolley, Prof. Newton, Prof. Steenstrup, M. Victor Fatio, 
Prof. Blasius, and Sir Richard Owen, all of whom have printed 
important contributions to the literature of this subject. But, as 
Mr. Grieve points out in his Introduction, these memoirs are 
scattered in different volumes and publications of Scientific 
Societies, and his own work, he says, has been undertaken ‘not 
with the impression that he has much to relate that is new to 
British ornithologists, but more with the desire to bring within 
the reach of all materials that are at present difficult of access.” 
In order to determine the area in the northern hemisphere in 
which the Great Auk existed, Mr. Grieve very properly begins 
by tracing out the localities in which it is known to have bred, 
the records of its occurrence or capture, and the places where its 
remains have been discovered. The following haunts seem to be 
historically well attested, namely, St. Kilda, Orkney, possibly 
Shetland, Farée, the three Garefowl rocks off the coast of Iceland, 
Danells or Graahs Islands, situated in latitude 65° 20’ N., at one 
time called Gunnbjornsskjoerne; then, proceeding westward to 
the Kast Coast of North America, we find abundant evidence of 
its former occurrence on Funk Island, off the coast of Newfound- 
land, as well as on some of the islands in the Bay of St. Lawrence, 
and at Cape Breton; while another station on the same coast at 
which it probably occurred was Cape Cod, apparently the southern 
limit of the region in which the bird lived. 
In European seas the Garefowl in historic times is not known 
to have been ever so plentiful as it was in American waters. 
There at one time, as we learn from the narratives of early 
voyagers (Carthier, André Thévet, Hore, Parkinson, and others), 
the fishermen visiting Newfoundland were wont to kill numbers 
of them for food during the time the birds were assembled on the 
islands for the purpose of breeding, and whole boat-loads of them 
used to be carried away to be salted down for provisions. It is 
easy to understand what a disastrous effect such wholesale 
destruction must have had upon a bird which could never have 
been very numerous as a species, which, even if unmolested, 
could not have increased very rapidly (since it laid but a single 
