G. F. Eaton — Prehistoric Fauna of Block Island. 147 



Wm Hawthornes surrendring his seven hundred acres of land 

 formerly graunted to him, doe relinquish theire clayme, & do 

 graunt all their right & interest that this Court haue or might 

 haue in Block Island to the above mentioned fower gentn, to 

 each of them a quarter parte." In 1660, these four gentlemen 

 sold their title to the Island to a company of sixteen men who 

 took possession early in the following year ; and from that 

 time on the Island was controlled by the English. The pres- 

 ence in the shell-heaps of a variety of primitive implements of 

 stone and bone, as well as refuse flakes of quartz, and the 

 absence of all fragments of metal or European earthenware, 

 make it obvious that these shell-heaps were formed before the 

 colonization of the Island by the English. How long before 

 that event the oldest deposits were laid down is purely con- 

 jectural. 



Condition of the Vertebrate Remains. 



The vertebrate remains found in the different shell-heaps 

 and smaller deposits were damp when first removed, owing to 

 their proximity to the surface and to the frequent and heavy 

 rains which fell during the time of exploration. "With the 

 exception of fragments of the larger bones of the deer, which 

 had resisted the action of frost and moisture to some extent, 

 they were soft and liable to crumble in spite of great care 

 taken in removing and preserving them. They were wrapped 

 in cotton and allowed to dry slowly for several weeks. At the 

 end of that time, they were found to be dry, light, and very 

 brittle, and the readiness with which they absorbed moisture 

 from the tongue or wetted finger showed that, during a long 

 period of underground weathering, they had lost much of their 

 organic composition. Very few of the bones were perfect. 

 The shafts of the limb bones of the deer and dogs had been 

 broken for the marrow they contained, though no pains had 

 been taken to split them lengthwise. The articular ends of 

 the long bones of the bird skeletons were often missing from 

 the shafts, and in some cases marks of teeth were visible where 

 these softer parts had been gnawed away, probably by dogs. 

 A few of the bone fragments were charred, and a large pro- 

 portion of the rest had been darkened to some extent by 

 exposure to fire. 



The Great Auk. 



The fact that the bones of the Great Auk were found in two 

 shell-heaps, viz., the Mott Shell-heap and the Cemetery Shell- 

 heap, is of interest, since it adds to the knowledge of the 

 distribution of this extinct bird. In an article by Mr. Frederic 

 A. Lucas entitled "The Great Auk" (Kept. Kat. Mus., 1889), 



