44 Recent Literature. [January, 
but were admirable paddles in the water, enabling the bird to 
move about even more swiftly than the loon. The legs were ex- 
tremely short but powerful, and placed so much posteriorly that 
in resting on the rocks the birds assumed an upright attitude, the 
whole of the leg and toes being applied to the surface. It wasa 
native of the northern hemisphere, the penguin being its relative 
in the southern. The causes of its extermination are not difficult 
to discover. Its short wings and peculiar conformation rendered — 
it helpless on the land; while its flesh and feathers were so valu- © 
able as to invite the rapacity of man. There were few suitable 
breeding-places, and when these were invaded it could not fy — 
elsewhere, and had no choice but to die. In the ‘struggle for 
existence,’ to which nature subjects all her animated productions, © 
such a bird as the great auk must perish early. It must have” 
been a curious sight, two hundred years ago, to see these wild, 
quantities of these birds’ flesh, but they were accustomed to salt 
avista and other places were in the habit of salting and selling | 
them, in the winter season, instead of pork, to the fishermen. | 
The sailors used to land on the islands where they bred and fh 
their boats with the plump unwieldy birds (which on land pul 
make no effort to escape), driving them, according to Whitbourt 
on board by hundreds, or knocking them on the head with stich 
They feasted on their eggs and even burned their bodies for m 
mation regarding the former existence of the great auk, t? 
without doubt it ranged along the southern coast of Newto™ 
