ALCID^. 425 



the ' ^Magazine of Natural History,' new series, vol. i. p. 360, 1837, is as 

 follows : — " Great Auk. Mr. Gosling, of Leigham, informed me that a 

 specimen of this bird was picked up dead near Lund}' Island in the year 

 1829; and Professor Jameson suggests that it might have been one which 

 had been obtained by Mr. Stevenson at St. Ivilda, and had escaped from 

 the lighthouse keeper at Pladda, about that time, when on its way to 

 Edinburgh (see Edinburgh N"ew Phil. Trans. October 1831)." Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney, Jun., in the 'Zoologist' (1868, p. 1446), remarks that "Mr. T. 

 E. Gosling is more than once referred to as an ornithologist in Bellamy's 

 ' Natural History of South Devon.' This catalogue, written subsequently 

 to Moore's, does not even allude to the Great Auk, from which we may 

 infer Mr. Bellamy partly discredited the specimen said to have been 

 washed ashore at Lundy Island." It should be remembered, however, 

 that Bellamy's work related to the southern portion of the county only, 

 and he might not have thought it necessary to allude to a bird said to 

 have occurred in North Devon. 



It is, indeed, only a slender link of evidence that connects this inte- 

 resting bird, once an inhabitant of St. Kilda, the Orkney and Faroe Isles, 

 which has now been extinct for half a century, with our Devonshire Ornis. 

 AVe have given above full i)artieulars of all that it is possible to ascertain 

 repecting the alleged discovery of a dead Great Auk off Lundy in 1829, and 

 consider it remarkable that no trace of the bird remains, and that there is 

 no information as to whether its skin was even preserved. But if the 

 statements can be relied upon that early in the present century examples 

 of the bird were occasionally obtained upon the French coast, three having 

 been reported from the neighbourhood of Cherbourg, and two more from 

 that of Dieppe*, there would be no inherent improbability that a Great 

 Auk, in swimming south off our western coasts, should put in at Lundy. 

 At the date when it was said to have been met with it was not known 

 that this species was fast approaching extinction, and the great value 

 attaching to each specimen, since this fact was realized by naturalists, had 

 not then accrued. There are even traditions, handed down from early 

 inhabitants of Lundy, which seem to point to the Great Auk's having 

 formerly nested upon the island, and even since Mr. Heaven's family 

 became its proprietors a large egg was brought to the house which was 

 positively asserted to have been produced by one of these birds. This egg 

 (most probably a double-yelked egg of the Common Guillemot) was kept 

 on the mantelpiece in tlie dining-room as an ornament, and children in tlie 

 house were permitted to play with it as a toy, until one day it was 

 smjishcd ! Although it is extremely improbable that the (Jrcat Auk ever 

 had a nesting-station so far to tlie south of its usual habitals (which were 

 rocky islets off the coast of Iceland, and a few other places in the far 

 north), we reproduce the Lundy folk-lore for what it may be wortli. 



The Kev. H. G. Heaven was kind enough to write us the details in a 

 letter wliich we communicated to the 'Zoologist' for 18(56: — "Lundy 



* Fide ProfesBOr Newton on tho Gare Fowl and its Historians in tiio 'Natural 

 History Review' for October 1805. 



