426 THE BIEDS OF DEVON. 



Island, September Gth, 1865. With regard to your question ■whether 

 we have ever seen the Great Auk, I mu8t answer in the negative. There 

 is strong presumptive evidence, however, that the Great xluk has been 

 seen alive on the island within the last thirty years ; at least, I cannot 

 imagine what other bird it was. The facts are as follows, and I must 

 leave it to more experienced ornithologists to draw the conclusion: — In 

 the year 1838 or 1839 [this is just five yeai's before the last Great Auk 

 was obtained in Iceland] as nearly as I can recollect, not, however, more 

 recently, one of our men in the egging season brought us an enormous 

 eg^, which we took for an abnormal specimen of the Guillemot's egg, or, 

 as they are locally termed, the ' pick-billed Murr.' This, however, the 

 man strenuously denied, saying it was the egg of the ' King and Queen 

 Murr,' and that it was very rare to get them, as there were only two or three 

 ' King and Queen Murrs ' ever on the island. On being further questioned 

 he said they were not like the ' Picked-bills,' but like the ' Kazor-billed 

 Murrs' (i. e. the Razor-billed Auk); that they were much larger than 

 either of them; and that he did not think they could fly, as he never saw 

 them on the wing nor high up the clifl's like the other birds, and that they, as 

 he expressed it, ' scuttled ' into the watep, tumbling among the boulders, 

 the egg being only a little way above high water. He thought they had 

 deserted the island, as he had not seen them or an egg for (I believe) 

 fifteen years till the one he brought to us ; but that they (?'. e. the 

 people of the island) sometimes saw nothing of them for four or five years, 

 but he accounted for this by supposing the birds had fixed on a spot 

 inaccessible to the eggers from the land for breeding purposes. The shell 

 of the egg we kept for some years, but, unfortunately, it at last got 

 broken. It was precisely like the Guillemot's egg in sha])e, nearly, if not 

 quite, twice the size, with white ground and black and brown spots and 

 blotches. We have never, however, met with bird or egg since, but as 

 the island has become since that time constantly and yearly more 

 frequented and populous, it may have permanently deserted the place. 

 The man has been dead some years now, being then past middle age, and 

 I thiulv he had been an inhabitant of the island some twenty-five or thirty 

 years. He spoke of the birds in such a way that one felt convinced of 

 their existence, and that he himself had seen them ; but he evidently 

 knew no other name for them than ' King and Queen !Murrs,' which he 

 said the islanders called them ' because they were so big, and stood up so 

 bold-like.' In colour they were also like the ' Eazor-billed Murr.' 

 Xobody, he said, had ever succeeded in catching or destroying a bird, as 

 far as he knew, because they were so close to the water, and scuttled in 

 so fast. The existence of these birds had been traditional on the island 

 when he came to it, and even the oldest inhabitants agreed that there 

 were never more than two or three couple. He himself never knew of 

 more than one couple at a time."] 



