THE PUFFINS AND AUKS 



305 



beaks, and I believe all existing species are black 

 above and white below. The beaks show but 

 little tendency to the sportive flattening so 

 characteristic of the puffins. 



These birds are very strong divers, and get a 

 great portion of their food from the bottom of 

 the sea. The two species found all along our 

 Pacific coast, on the Farallone Islands and 

 Santa Catalina, are the Rhinoceros Anklet 1 (14 

 inches long), and the Cassin Anklet, the former 

 so called because of an erect horny shield at the 

 base of its beak. The Least Anklet 2 is only 6£ 

 inches long — about the bulk of a small, thinly 

 feathered screech-owl. 



The Razor-Billed Auk, 3 of the North At- 

 lantic Ocean, sometimes wanders in summer 

 to the coast of Maine, and in winter even mi- 

 grates as far south as New Jersey. (Robert 

 Ridgway.) It is 17 inches long, and is the 

 largest living member of the group of auks. As 

 might be expected, it is a distinguished resident 

 of the Bird Rocks. 



The Great Auk is now a bird of history and 

 museums only. It met its fate on Funk 

 Island, a treeless dot in the sea, about thirty 

 miles northwest of Newfoundland, which was 

 the first land met with as the Auks swam south- 



1 Cer-o-rhin'ca mo-no-cer-a'ta. 



2 Sim-o-rhyn'chus pu-sil'lus. 



3 Al'ca tor' da. 



ward on their annual migrations. The wings of 

 this bird were so little developed that it was 

 wholly unable to fly, and while on land it was 

 any one's prey. 



The thousands of Great Auks that visited 

 Funk Island naturally attracted men who 

 wished to turn them to account. Whalemen 

 were landed, and left there to kill Auks and 

 secure their feathers. The birds were either 

 driven into pens and slaughtered there, or else 

 the pens were used to contain their dead bodies. 

 Apparently great numbers of the bodies were 

 burned for fuel. About 1844, the species be- 

 came entirely extinct. 



When Funk Island was visited by Mr. F. A. 

 Lucas in 1887, in quest of Auk remains, he found 

 deposits of bones several feet in thickness, 

 evidently where the bodies of slaughtered 

 birds had been heaped up, and left to decay. 

 Out of these deposits, several barrels of mixed 

 bones and peaty earth were taken which yielded 

 several complete skeletons of that species. 



Had the Great Auk possessed wings for flight, 

 the chances are that it would not have fallen 

 such easy prey to its exterminators. The 

 moral lesson of its fate is — in these days of 

 fire-arms and limitless ammunition, no bird 

 should be hatched without steel-plate armor, 

 strong wings for flight, and swift legs for run- 

 ning away. 



