276 ALCID^. 



has been obtained as far south as the Canary Islands and the 

 Azores, while on the American side it occasionally reaches 

 North Carolina. 



Alca impennis. Great Auk. 



Alca impennis Linnwus, Sjst. Nat. 1758, p. 130 : 

 Norwegian seas. 



Alca impennis Linn. ; -B. O. U. List, 1st ed. 188.3, p. 206 ; 



Saunders, Manual, 2nd ed. 1899, p. 697. 

 Plautus impennis Ogilvie-Orant, Cat. Birds B. M. xxvi. 1898, 



p. 563. 



Jmpe»mis= wingless ; from in and 'penna. 



Distribution in the British Islands. — Extinct about 1840. 

 Recorded in the Outer Hebrides as long ago as 1684. An 

 adult male was obtained on Papa Westray, Orkney Islands, 

 in 1813, and is now in the British Museum ; a bird was 

 captured alive on St. Kilda, Aug. 182 1 or 1822 ; another, 

 taken in Waterford Harbour, May 1834, is now in the 

 Museum of Trinity College, Dublin. One appears to have 

 been captured at the Fame Islands, Northumberland, before 

 17 69; there is also evidence that another bird was captured 

 on St. Kilda about 1840. Remains have been found in the 

 Orkney Islands, Caithness, Argyllshire, and Durham, and in 

 several districts in Ireland. 



General Distribution. — The Great Auk became extinct in 

 1844. It was formerly found from south-east Greenland and 

 Labrador to Newfoundland, round which it was especially 

 abundant, and particularly so on Funk Island. It also bred 

 on the Faeroes and on the islands off the south-west of 

 Iceland, where the last pair of birds were taken alive in 

 June 1844. In winter it appears to have been found as far 

 south as Denmark on the east and Carolina and Florida in 

 the west Atlantic. Eighty skins and seventy-three eggs are 

 known to be in existence. 



