1868.] MK. R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 361 



I may as well close these notes on supposititious or non-existent 

 animals by some remarks on other species, which though not mam- 

 mals, vet come fairly under the headings I have given to this section 

 of my paper. The Great Auk {Alca impennis, Linn.), once so 

 common in Greenland, in the days of Egede, Cranz, and Fabricius, 

 as, indeed, it was in many other parts of the northern portion of 

 Europe and America, there can be little doubt is now quite extinct 

 in Greenland. I made every inquiry regarding it, but could learn 

 Httle or nothing about it. The natives about Disco Bay do not now 

 even recollect it by name, though when the old Eskimo name of it 

 (^Isarokitsoc) was mentioned they immediately repeated it, and said, 

 "Ah! that means little wings!" Though the Royal Museum in 

 Copenhagen has offered large rewards for a specimen, hitherto their 

 efforts have been in vain. One of the stories I was told at Godhavn, 

 on Disco Island, if true, would afford some hope of its yet being 

 found: — Eight years ago (1859), on one of the little islets just out- 

 side of the harbour, in the winter time, a half-breed named Johannes 

 Propert (a nephew, by the vvay, of the well-known interpreter Carl 

 Petersen) shot a bird which he had never seen before, but which, 

 from description, could be no other than the Great Auk. He and 

 his companions ate it, and the dogs in his sledge got the refuse ; so 

 that only one feather could afterwards be found. I know the man 

 well. He is rather an intelligent fellow, and was not likely to destroy 

 a bird of such rarity that he had never seen it before, when he knew 

 that it would command a price from the Governor. Moreover 

 Johannes bears the reputation of telling wonderful tales now and then. 

 He says that he saw two, but that one escaped among the rocks. 

 Mr. Frederick Hansen, Coionibestyrer (Governor) of Godhavn, has 

 offered a reward for it, and is very sanguine that he will yet obtain 

 a specimen of the Geirfugl*. 



Depending on the native stories of a jumping animal found in the 

 southern part of Greenland, on grassy meadows, and called by them 

 Piglertok (" the springer"), Fabricius thought that he recognized the 

 Common Frog, and has accordingly entered the Rana temporaria as 

 a member of the Greenland fauna. He, however, saw no specimens, 

 nor is such an animal known in Greenland, where there are no 

 species of Reptiles or Batrachians found. About the southern 

 portion of Disco Bay, the natives use the name as a sort of slang 

 title to the Nisa (^Phoccena communis, Brookes), the MarsvUn of 

 the Danes in Greenland f, from its tumbling or springing move- 

 ments while disporting itself. Jansen X gives the word in the south 

 Greenland dialect as pisigsartut or pigdlertut, and translates it a 

 Grasshopper {grceshoppef). 



* Swedish Garfogel, Norse and Icelandic Geirfugl and Goiful. It is also 

 called in Norse Stor- Ommer. 



t Called in Sweden Marsvin and Tumlare, in Finnish Mermka, and in 

 Norse he and Nise, from which, apparently, the Eskimo name Nisa is derived, 

 as are not a few of the Greenland words, from their intercourse with the old 

 Norsemen prior to the Middle Ages. I suspect Piglertotr. now the vulgar term, 

 was originally the native one. 



J Lib. cit. p. .50. 



