ALCINA. 697 
THE GREAT AUK. 
ALCA IMPENNIS, Linnzeus. 
This species, also called the Gare-fowl, is now supposed to be 
extinct, and with good reason, for since 1844, when the latest 
examples were obtained off Iceland, the bird has been vainly, though 
assiduously, sought. It formerly inhabited the shores of Iceland, the 
Feroes, and the Scandinavian coast of the North Sea; while its 
ptesence in the Outer Hebrides was recorded as long ago as 1684, 
though the bird had evidently become very rare in Scottish waters 
by the beginning of the present century. An adult male—now in 
the British Museum, and from which the above illustration is taken 
—was obtained by Bullock in 1813, from Papa Westray in the 
Orkneys; in August 1821 or 1822, Fleming received a live bird 
which had been captured on St. Kilda; and in May 1834 another 
—now in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin—was taken 
alive at the mouth of Waterford Harbour. No other British 
specimens are in existence ; but Mr. Henry Evans, during his visits 
