Birds. 



8119 



just published.* This gentleman tells a story to show that spiteful 

 spirits dwell in some part of the cliff, but does not suggest that they 

 are the ghosts of departed gare-fowls. 



Faber further informs us {op. cit. p. 48) that on the 25th of June, 

 1821, he started on an excursion to the Reykjanes skerries. He was 

 accompanied by a Danish merchant, a Swedish Count, and the latter' s 

 servant.f Of the Icelanders who were on board the vessel, the "Vil- 

 lingar, a cutter belonging to one Jon Danielsson, only one survives. 

 He, by name Olafr Palsson, gave us an account of the voyage, closely 

 agreeing with Faber's, which he had never seen. They came first to 

 the Geirfuglasker, and sailed between it and the " drangr," where the 

 Count, whose name I have been unable to ascertain, landed and 

 gathered some sea-weed. Then the weather became fair,, and they 

 proceeded to the skerry itself, where they arrived in the evening. 

 Faber remained on board, but the Count again landed, and presently 

 fell into the water. They picked him up, and his servant shot a good 

 many gannets (Sula bassana). Later in the evening they returned, 

 and some of them went on shore, but could find no way up. Jon 

 Danielsson declared he was ready to stop a week ; the Count, however, 

 seemed to have had enough of it, and " Fugle Faber thought as the 

 Count did." They were out two days and two nights at the rocks. 

 They did not go near Eldey, saw no gare-fowls, and their opinion was 

 that they must have been all killed by the French sailors, as they had 

 heard a vessel of that nation had been seen there two summers before. J 

 Jon Jonsson, son of the owner of the " Villingar," then a lad about 

 twelve years old, who assisted in putting the foreigners on board her, and 

 had often heard his father and elder brother speak of the expedition, 

 also corroborated Olafr Palsson's narrative. 



* 'The Oxonian in Iceland, &c.' By the Kev. Frederick Metcalfe, M.A., &c. 

 London, 1861, p. 260. 



f I am not so fortunate as to possess a copy of Faber's other work, ' Ueber das 

 Leben der hochnordischen Vogel,' Leipzig, 1825, nor have I seen the paper in the 

 f Isis' for 1827 (p. 633), in the latter of which I am informed he gives the fullest par- 

 ticulars of his expedition ; 1 therefore have to content myself with the translated extracts 

 therefrom contained in a paper " On the Great Auk," communicated May 19, 1850, by 

 Dr. Edward Charlton, to the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club, and published in their 

 4 Transactions,' vol. iv. pp. 113 et seq. 



% It does not seem to me at all impossible that there should be some truth in this 

 report. Mr. Scales has kindly informed me that he obtained the fine great auk's egg 

 now in his possession from M. Dufresne, who had one or two others in his collection, 

 in 1816 or 1817. It was said to have come from the Orkneys, which, however, I think 

 is extremely unlikely. 



