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VIII. Description of the Skeleton of the Great Auk, or Garfowl (Alca impennis, L.). 

 By Professor Owen, F.R.S., F.Z.S. 



Read June 14, 1864. 



[Plates LI. & LII.] 



Mr. ALFRED NEWTON, M.A., F.L.S., who, with his friend the late lamented and 

 accomplished naturahst Mr. J. Wolley, has contributed valuable materials' for the 

 history of the Garfowl (Alca impennis, L.), prosecuting his endeavours to obtain 

 additional materials for that history, 

 has received the body of a speci- 

 men, dried, flattened, featherless, 

 and mummified, like the Penguins 

 from the guano-masses of the Peru- 

 vian islands. This specimen was 

 obtained from one of the old breed- 

 ing-places of the extinct bird. Funk 

 Island, long. 53° W., lat. 49° 45' N., 

 ofl^ the coast of Newfoundland, by 

 the Bishop of that colonial diocese, 

 and was transmitted by his Lordship 

 to Mr. Newton, who has kindly con- 

 fided it to me for description, with 

 permission to treat the specimen as 

 might best serve the interests of 

 science. 



A preliminary photograph of the 

 mummy having heen taken, it was 

 accordingly macerated for the ex- 

 traction of the skeleton, and has 

 yielded the skull, bones of the trunk, 

 scapular arch, and furculum, right 

 humerus, right femur, tibia, and 

 fibula. 



Learning that Mr. John Hancock, the accomplished and artistic taxidermist of 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne, had extracted the bones of the extremities from a rare skin of Alca 



' See abstract of Mr. WoUey's " Researches in Iceland respecting the Garefowl, or Great Auk (Alca impennis, 

 Linn.)," by Alfred Newton, Esq., M.A., F.Z.S.. 'Ibis,' October 1861, p. 374. 



2x2 



Old breeding-ground of Alca impennis. 



