LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN DIVING BIRDS. 209 
with eternal ice. Here it is commonly found upon the floating masses of the 
gelid ocean, far from land, to which alone it resorts in the season of pro- 
creation. 
This is far from being the case, for it is doubtful whether the great 
auk ever extended its range north of the Arctic Circle and its remains 
have been found in shell heaps as far south as the Bay of Biscay on 
the eastern side of the Atlantic and Florida on the western side. The 
only record of this bird north of the Arctic Circle, namely, at Disco, 
in Greenland, is considered by Newton of very doubtful value. 
The positively known breeding places of the great auk are quickly 
enumerated. The chief of these on the American side of the Atlantic 
was Funk Island, a rocky island 32 miles off Fogo on the northeastern 
side of Newfoundland. It is possible that the bird also bred at Pen- 
guin Islands on the south coast, and Penguin Islands near Cape Freel. 
The latter islands were visited in 1887 by Lucas (1887), but he found 
no evidence of such former occupation. He says: 
There can be little doubt that the extent of the breeding range of the great 
auk has been, as a rule, much overestimated, and the writer’s own belief is that, 
like the gannet, the garefowl was confined to a very few localities. 
The Bird Rocks in the Bay- of St. Lawrence, Cape Breton, and the 
Virgin Rocks, southeast of Newfoundland, are all more or less doubt- 
ful former breeding sites. The records of its occurrence in Greenland 
are very few and all doubtful. Capt. George Cartwright, that acute 
observer and recorder, who frequented the Labrador coast from 1770 
to 1786, was familiar with the bird and has written a classic account 
of its status on Funk Island, but never mentions any breeding place 
on the Labrador coast. I believe that he would have described it if 
any such existed to the south of Hamilton Inlet. 
The fact that Gosnold found great auks at Cape Cod in the spring 
and summer of 1602, and that Joselyn says one was taken at Black 
Point, near Portland, Maine, in the spring, has been used as an argu- 
“ment in favor of former breeding places at Cape Cod and elsewhere 
along the New England coast. Hardy says that the shell heaps along 
this coast were made almost entirely in summer, and, as these con- 
tained great auk remains, therefore this bird probably bred at Cape 
Cod and elsewhere. The conclusion, however, is not warranted, for 
there are many species of sea birds at the present day that summer far 
south of their breeding grounds, owing either to sterility or imma- 
turity. Also many sea birds that breed in the north tarry along the 
coast until June and are back again in July. 
Catesby (1771) gives a list of “ European water fowls which I have 
observed to be also inhabitants of America, which, though they abide 
the winter in Carolina, most of them return north in the spring to 
breed.” In this list “penguin” is included. As has been already 
