SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 407 



River is now named Monument River, near which the former 

 home of Grover Cleveland is situated. There is no doubt 

 that the bird referred to by Davis as the Penguin was the 

 Great Auk. It was remarkably quick of hearing, and was 

 readily frightened by the least sound. Buzzards Bay and 

 its tributaries were once famous spawning grounds for many 

 species of fish, and the Auks on their northward migration, 

 entering Buzzards Bay and following the shore to the north- 

 east, would have found themselves embayed there, and 

 might have bred on an island at the mouth of Manomet Bay. 

 There is a regular spring migration of Loons, Geese and other 

 water-fowl here, which come up the bay and across the pen- 

 insula of Cape Cod at this point. Loons and Mergansers 

 formerly bred here. If the Great Auk bred here, the whites 

 must have extirpated it, even if the Indians, when furnished 

 with guns, did not. It is possible that the Auks which fre- 

 quented this bay in summer might have been infertile birds 

 which summered south of their usual breeding place. 



In August, 1910, in company with Mr. C. Allan Lyford, I 

 explored the region at the head of Buzzards Bay in a search for 

 riemains of the Auk. By elimination we concluded that 

 Penguin River must have been what is now known as Back 

 River. Back River lies south of the Buzzards Bay station, 

 in what is now known as the town of Bourne, and the railroad 

 to Woods Hole crosses it. There are shoals here where the 

 waters are very low at low tide, and where the Indians might 

 have trapped the birds in a weir. On the bank of an inlet 

 of what is now known as the Mill Pond, which connects with 

 this river, there is a small shell-mound. Excavations here 

 show no signs of bones. We learned from old residents that 

 formerly there were other mounds about the bay, but one of 

 them apparently has been buried under a railroad embank- 

 ment, and others probably have been covered by the filling in 

 which has been done along the shores where cottages of sum- 

 mer residents now stand. If the Auk bred in this locality, 

 it must have nested on Mashne Island, which on the north 

 side has several acres of low, flat land. There seems to be no 

 other island fitted for its breeding place. 



