EXPEDITION TO FUNK ISLAND. 495 



less lingered long after it had become extirpated in other and more ac- 

 cessible localities. Lying 32 miles out in the Atlantic, environed by 

 rocks and shoals, where the sea breaks heavily during storms, the 

 vicinity of Funk Island is by no means attractive to the modern navi- 

 gator, and of late years has been seldom visited except by sealers, par- 

 ties of eggers, and occasional fishermen. 



The sailors of old and the hardy colonists seem to have habitually 

 resorted to this spot for supplies, partly because there were no charts 

 to warn them of hidden perils, and partly for the reason that supplies 

 must be had at any risk.* 



Therefore the work of slaying the Great Auks went steadily on until 

 the last of the species had disappeared from the face of the earth, and 

 the ])lace to which it resorted for untold ages knew it no more. 



With few exceptions naturalists seem not to have been aware of the 

 fact that the Great Auk wa > being exterminated until the catastrophe 

 had actually taken place, and fewer still appear to have thought of the 

 calamity as occurring in America as well as in Europe. 



Audubon, who, by the way, wrote of the bird at second hand, says in 

 his work (published between 1839 and 1844) that the Great Auk is rare 

 or accidental on the coast of Newfoundland, and is said by fishermen, 

 who kill the young for bait, to breed on a rock off the southeast coast of 

 that island. 



This speaks of the bird as rare, giving no hint that it was then looked 

 upon as extinct, but in the " Gloucester Telegraph" for August 7, 1839, is 

 an article from the " Salem Register" signed " A Fisherman," in which 

 the Great Auk is spoken of as being already exterminated. 



This paragraph which is interesting in that it adds one more cause 

 for the extermination of the bird to those alreadj^ known, is as follows : 



All the mackerel- men who arrive report the scarcity of this fish, and at the same 

 time I notice an improvement in taking them with nets at Cape Cod and other places. 



If this speculation is to go on without being checked or regulated by tlie Govern- 

 ment, will not these fish be as scarce on the coast as jjenguins are, which were so 

 plenty before the Revolutionary War that our fishermen could take them with their 

 gaffs? But during the war some mercenary and cruel individuals used to visit the 

 islands on the eastern coast where were the haunts of these birds for breeding, and 

 take them for the sake of the fat, which they procflred and then let the birds go.t 



This proceeding destroyed the whole race. 



The Kev. William Wilson, who resided in Newfoundland as a mission- 

 ary from 1820 to 1834, and who once preached a sermon against the 



*The writer has no intention of picturing the difiScnlty of landing on Funk Island 

 in too dark colors. It is simply a question of striking a favorable time, and while 

 the dweller on the coast can choose his time, the chance visitor must trust to Inck, 

 and luck is ever an uncertain element. At the time of our visit lauding on "The 

 Bench" was a simple matter, although at any other point a boat would have been 

 dashed to pieces in the surf; a little later another collector lost a fortnight in trying 

 to laud, and then gave it up. 



tOf late years the penguins of the Antarctic Seas have been killed by sealers and 

 tried out for oil. 



