30 



The Great Auk. 



ties," printed in London, writes: "The 

 Wobble is an ill shaped Fowl, having no 

 long Feathers in their Pinions, which is the 

 reason they cannot fly, not much unlike the 

 Pengwin; they are in the Spring very fat, 

 or rather oyly, but pulled and garbidg'd, 

 and laid to the Fire to roast, they yield not 

 one drop." 



In a work on Greenland, by Hans Egede, 

 printed at Copenhagen in the year 17 18, 

 and translated and published in London in 

 181 8, it is stated that "There is another 

 sea-bird, which the Norway-men call Alkes, 

 which in the winter season contributes much 

 to the maintenance of the Greenlander. 

 Sometimes there are such numbers of them 

 that they drive them in large flocks to the 

 shore, where they catch them in their hands. 



Coming down to modern times we find 

 that early in the present century the Great 

 Auk was abundant on the islands on the 

 coast of Iceland, but that in 1807 an Eng- 

 lish privateer visited these islands and 

 killed most of them, and that again in the 

 year 1810, the inhabitants of the Faroe 

 Islands, being threatened with starvation, 

 visited Iceland and made havoc among the 

 Auks. 



From these inroads the species never 

 recovered, and after this time we hear of 

 them as occurring on the coast of Iceland 

 only in small numbers. The last seen were 

 two killed in 1844. 



On our own coast this species was once 

 very abundant. We have seen what Cap- 

 tain Whitbourne said of it on the New- 

 foundland coast, and we know from the 

 occurrence of its Remains, and from the 

 testimony of witnesses, some of whom may 

 be still living, that it used to be plentifully 

 distributed along the coast of Maine and 

 Massachusetts, as far south as Boston Bay. 

 Mr. George A. Boardman learned from a 

 Methodist missionary, who was stationed 

 (jn the coast of Newfoundland near Funk 

 Island from 1818 to 1823, that during the 

 whole of his residence these birds were pres- 



ent in considerable numbers, and that the 

 inhabitants destroyed many of them for their 

 feathers. Often the boys kept them as pets 

 tied by a string to the leg. Mr. Audubon 

 states that during a voyage to England, per- 

 haps about 1830, Mr. Henry Havell hooked^ 

 Great Auk on the Newfoundland Banks and 

 brought it on board. This seems to be the 

 latest record that we have of its occurrence 

 on the American coast, though Mr. Ruth- 

 ven Deane published in the Bulletin of the 

 Nuttall Ornithological Club an account of 

 a young bird which was picked up dead on 

 the coast of Labrador in 1870. About this 

 occurrence, however, there seems to be 

 some doubt. 



All accounts agree in stating that this 

 bird was very abundant in the seventeenth 

 century, and that it bred on rocky islets 

 off the coast where it was free from the at- 

 tacks of any enemy except man. When on 

 shore the birds sat upright and moved along 

 by short steps about as fast as a man would 

 walk. It is generally agreed that only one 

 egg was laid. This was large, pointed and 

 white with brown or chocolate spots. The 

 birds made no defense of their t.%g but 

 would bite fiercely when caught, inflicting 

 severe wounds with their great strong bills. 

 So far as known seventy-eight skins of 

 the Great Auk exist in various museums, 

 and besides these there are a number of 

 skeletons, parts of skeletons, and mummies 

 taken from shell heaps and old breeding 

 places. 



The length of the Great Auk was about 

 thirty inches, and the color was as fol- 

 lows: The head, neck and upper parts were 

 black, fading to snufif brown on the throat 

 and sides of head and neck. The lower 

 parts, a large oval spot in front of the eye 

 and the tips of the secondary wing feathers 

 are white. The white of the breast and 

 neck extends upward in a point into the 

 brown of the throat. The bill is black with 

 the grooves between the transverse ridges 

 white. The feet and claws black, eye hazel. 



