6884 Birds. 



perhaps, within the memory of persons yet living, or, at all events, 

 individuals of the species survived until very recent times. 



In the far North, in our own days, a similar fate threatens the bird 

 we are about to speak of, though we rejoice to say it cannot be con- 

 sidered as entirely extinct. The destruction of the dodo was, doubt- 

 less, owing to the great facility with whicli that bird was captured, 

 and to the excellence of its flesh for the table ; and the latter cause, 

 no doubt, influenced the inhabitants of New Zealand when they 

 hunted down the Dinornis to its utter extirpation. 



Not only is the great auk a timid, stupid and gregarious bird, espe- 

 cially in the breeding season, but its flesh was anxiously sought for 

 by the earlier navigators, as superior to that of all others of its tribe. 

 We do not, however, suppose that those rough mariners were very 

 particular in their diet. Any fresh meat would taste exquisitely after 

 weeks and months of privation on salted provisions ; and even at the 

 present day the inhabitants of Northern Europe, of Iceland, and of 

 the Faroe Islands, maintain that the guillemot and the razorbill are 

 culinary delicacies of a superior description. 



Many of the modern writers on Ornithology have come to the con- 

 clusion that the great auk is now really an extinct species. We hope, 

 however, to show that it is not, as yet, entirely extirpated, though, at 

 ihe same time, we confess our inability to point out its precise habi- 

 tat. At long intervals, sometimes of ten or fifteen years, a iem indi- 

 viduals of this species have made their appearance, during the present 

 century, in the Icelandic seas and other parts of the Arctic Ocean ; 

 but no breeding-places to which these birds annually resort is now 

 known to naturalists. With the exception of the late Mr. Bullock, of 

 London, no ornithologist of the present century has observed the 

 great auk in its wild state. Mr. Bullock, as is well known, chased 

 one of these birds in a six-oared boat off the Island of Papa Westra, 

 in the Orkneys, in 1812, where they had bred for many years. The 

 female bird was soon after shot, and sent up to London. But even 

 the older naturalists rarely savv this bird alive. Wormius (or Ole 

 Worm), the Danish naturalist, who wrote in 1655, is almost the only 

 one who speaks of its habits from actual observation. " I received," 

 says he, " three skins of this rare bird from Ferro, and also a living 

 individual from the same locality. The live bird I kept for several 

 months in Copenhagen. It was probably a young one of the species, 

 as in size it did not much exceed the bigness of a goose. It could 

 swallow at once a whole herring, and occasionally could take three in 

 succession ere it was satiated." Wormius's figure in his Museum 



