Birds. 6883 



feeding-grounds and places of rest being about sand-pits, sand-banks 

 and exposed morasses near the sea- coasts, it is impossible to approach 

 this wary bird without being seen. The first evening it was at my 

 house, seeking for a roosting-place, it walked into the hall, gazed at 

 the gas-lamp, which had just been hghted, and then proceeded to 

 walk up stairs, but, not liking the ascent, quietly walked down 

 again, returned into the yard, and afterwards went to roost in the 

 coach-house between the carriages, to which place it now retires 

 regularly every evening soon after dark. It is always observed to 

 face the sun, and moves about the yard following the course of that 

 luminary : it may always be found in that part of the yard where the 

 sun is shining, and with the face invariably towards it. When hungry 

 it follows the cook about (who usually feeds it) ; and if she has 

 neglected its food, looks into the kitchen, as if to remind her of the 

 neglect, and waits quietly, but with a searching eye, during the time 

 the meat is cutting up until it is fed. It is amusing to observe this 

 bird catch flies : he remains very quiet, as if asleep, and on a fly 

 passing him it is snapped up in his beak in an instant. The only 

 lime I observed any manifestation of anger in him was when the 

 mooruks were introduced into the yard where he was parading 

 about: these rapid, fussy, noisy birds running about his range ex- 

 cited his indignation, for on their coming near him he slightly elevated 

 the brilliant feathers of the head, the eyes became very brilliant, he 

 ruflBed his feathers and clattered his mandibles, as if about to try their 

 sword-like edge upon the intruding mooruks ; but his anger sub- 

 sided with these demonstrations, except an occasional flapping of his 

 powerful wings. One day, however, on one of the mooruks ap- 

 proaching too near him, he seized it with his mandibles by the neck, 

 on which the mooruk ran away, and did not appear in any way 

 injured. 



On the Great Auk (Alca impennis). By Edward Charlton, M.D. * 



Not many generations ago, and long subsequent to the great era 

 of the invention of printing, some gigantic birds inhabited the 

 southern hemisphere, but have now become utterly extinct. The 

 dodo has disappeared from its last habitat in the Isle of France, and 

 not even a perfect skeleton has been secured of its remains ; while a 

 still larger bird, the Dinornis of New Zealand, has been in existence, 



* From the ' Transactions of the Tyneside Natural History Society.' 



