8120 



Birds. 



It is clear, however, that at this very time there were great auks in 

 the neighbourhood, for, a few days later in the season, two birds were 

 seen sitting on a low rock, close to the place where I have before men- 

 tioned that two or three were shot, and were killed with a sprit or gaff by 

 another Jon Jonsson (now dead) and his son Sigurdr, who related the 

 circumstance to us. This witness is certain that it was about the 

 beginning of July of the same year as that of Faber's visit. They sold 

 the skins, which our informant himself took off, commencing the 

 operation by making a hole transversely across between the legs, as 

 he would do in the case of a quadruped. They afterwards ate the 

 bodies and sold the skins to the A'sgrimur before mentioned.* The 

 occurrence of so many examples of this bird nearly in the same locality 

 may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the tide runs in very 

 strongly round Skagen, and sets along Holmsberg.f The auks, after 

 fishing on that side of the promontory, may have found themselves 

 unable to make head against the current, and so have betaken them- 

 selves to the shore. 



I may here observe that we failed to gather any further information 

 respecting a bird said by Dr. Kjaerbolling (Danmark's Fugle, p. 415) 

 to have been killed in 1818 on a place in South Iceland, where many 

 had been observed; but Etatsraad Reinhardt records {loc. cit.) the 

 death of one in 1828, and I think the Doctor is altogether mistaken in 

 the assertion that "Apothecary Mechlenburg, of Flensborg, possesses 

 a pair which were killed on the gare-fowl skerries in 1829, where they 

 were courageously defending their two eggs." But of this last supposed 

 capture I shall say more presently. 



* The Icelandic skins of foxes (Canis lagopus) are all flayed in the way above 

 described. I cannot help suggesting that these may have been the two great auks' 

 skins stated by the late Etatsraad Reinhardt (loc. cit.) as being received in 1823 from 

 Oerebakke (Eyrarbakki), though they were said to have been killed there in that year 

 by a boy with a stick. Faber, when in the district, lived for some weeks in A'sgrimur's 

 house, who was probably thus aware that he wanted them. On leaving it he went in 

 the direction of Eyrarbakki ; on July 9th he was five miles to the east of Keblavik, 

 and in the end of that month and in the next was on the Westman Islands (Prodr. pp. 

 38 and 49). Some persons we saw declared that he had three specimens, but he him- 

 self says somewhere (I think in the ' Tsis ') that he never procured any of this species. 

 Possibly, therefore, they were sent after him to Eyrarbakki, and thence some two years 

 afterwards to the Museum at Copenhagen. 



•f We obtained information respecting the tides from a manuscript account of Gul- 

 bringe-sysla, written about 1784, by the then Land-foged Skule Magnusen, which was 

 kindly lent to Mr. Wolley, and the account was confirmed by the statements made to 

 us by fishermen. 



