472 THE DIVING BIRDS — PYGOPODES. 



uiucli unlike the Pen(jwin ; they are in the Spring very fat, or rather oyly, but pull'd 

 and garbidg'd, and laid to the Fire to roast, they yield not one drop." This author 

 lived eight years in Scarborough, a hundred leagues east of Boston. This renders it 

 highly probable that the Auk was then common in Casco Bay, where its bones are 

 now found in shell-heaps. 



In II Gazettleve Americano, published in Leghorn, in 1763 (Vol. III. p. 158), 

 under the head of Newfoundland, is the following paragraph : " The bird which is 

 represented in the annexed plate [a very good figure of P. impennls] is found more 

 frequently here than elsewhere. Although commonly called the Penguin of the 

 north, it is quite different from the true Penguin of the south, with which by some it 

 is wrongly confounded. In size it is equal to the common domestic Goose ; and the 

 better to judge of this in the plate the head and bill are given the size of life." 



In "A Discovrse and Discovery of Nevv-fovnd-land," etc., by Captain Richard 

 Whitbourne, of Exmouth, in the county of Devon, imprinted at London by Felix 

 Kingston, 1622 (p. 9), is the following : *' These Penguins are as bigge as Geese, and 

 flye not, for they haue but a little short wing ; and they multiplie so infinitely, vpon 

 a certain flat Hand, that men driue them from thence vpon a boord, into their boats 

 by hundreds at a time ; as if God had made the innocency of so poore a creature, to 

 become such an admirable instrument for the sustentation of man." 



In a description of Greenland by Hans Egede, translated and published at London 

 (2d ed.), 1818 [author's date, Copenhagen, July 20, 1718], we find : " There is another 

 sea-bird, which the Norway-men call Alkes, which in the winter season contributes 

 much to the maintenance of the Greenlanders. Sometimes there are such numbers 

 of them that they drive them in large flocks to the shore, where they catch them with 

 their hands " (pp. 95-98). 



In "New Voyages to North America," from 1683 to 1694, by the Baron Lahontan, 

 Lord Lieutenant, etc., translated from the French, London, 1735 (Vol. I. p. 241), 

 occurs the following: "The Moyacks are a sort of Fowl, as big as a Goose, having 

 a short Neck and a broad Foot ; and which is very strange, their Eggs are half as big 

 again as a Swan's, and yet they are all Yelk, and that so thick, that they must be 

 diluted with Water before they can be us'd as Pancakes." 



Genus ALCA, Linn^us. 



Alca, Linn. S. N. ed. 10, I. 1758, 130 ; ed. 12, I. 1766, 210 (type, A. tarda, Linn.). 

 Utnmania, Leacii, Syst. Cat. l^rit. Mus. 1816 (same type). 



Char. Similar to PlauUis, but smaller, the wings well developed, so as to admit of long- 

 sustained flight ; bill much shorter than the head, the culnien much arched from the base, the 

 maxilla with only three to five sulci, the mandible with but two or three, and these indistinct. 



There is but one species of this genus, the well-known Razor-bill Auk (A. torch), common to 

 both sides of the North Atlantic. 



Alca torda. 



THE RAZOR-BILLED AUK. 



Alca torda, Linn. S. N. L 1758, 130 (adult) ; ed. 12, 1. 1766, 210. — AuD. Orn. Biog. IIL 1835, 112 ; 



V. 1839, 428, ])1. 214. —Cass, in Band's B, "7. Am. 1858, 901. — Baird, Cat. N. Am. B. 1859, 



no. 711. — CouES, Check List, 1873, no. 616. 

 Utamania torda, Leacii, Stei)liens's Gen. Zool. XII L 1825, 27. — Coues, Pr. Ac. Nat. Sci. Philad. 



1868, 18; Key, 1872, 340; 2d Check List, 1882, no. 877. — Kidgw. Noni. N. Am. B. 1881, 



no. 742. 

 Alca pica, Linn. S. N. L 1766, 210 (young, or winter pUimage). 



