8126 



Birds. 



once struck with their likeness to the figure illustrating Prof. Steen- 

 strup's paper, — that valuable paper to which I first of all referred, and 

 which has been constantly at my side while compiling this abstract of 

 Mr. Wolley's notes. A little comparison, not only with the engraving, 

 but with the corresponding bones in other species, a good supply of 

 which there was no difficulty in procuring, soon showed that he had 

 not been mistaken, and accordingly bone-seeking became one of our 

 recognised occupations. Yet I cannot say that even here we were 

 very successful ; curiously enough where the chances seemed the best 

 we never found anything. Thus the old Geirfuglasker having formerly 

 been shared by the churches of Kyrkjubol and Mariu-Kyrkja-i-Vogi, 

 we naturally thought that the " Kjbkken-moddinger" (Kitchen-mid- 

 dens) at those places would be likely to yield the best supply. Yet at 

 what we were told was the site of the latter not a vestige of a bone 

 could be found. The ground was covered everywhere with great 

 stones — the little soil there was between them seeming as if it had 

 drifted into its present position, while the sea may have completely 

 washed away the rubbish-heaps, if houses ever stood there. At the 

 former place, — Gammall Kyrkjubol, — though there was a very large 

 grass-grown mound entirely composed of ancient refuse, and into 

 which we made a deep excavation, we did not recover a single frag- 

 ment of a great auk — scarcely, I think, of any bird — from it. Nor 

 was our luck much better at Stafnes, where we dug down through a 

 large heap, coming upon fishes' bones in great abundance, but little 

 of interest excepting a stratum of broken egg-shells, apparently those 

 of guillemots and razorbills, with perhaps a few eider ducks', though 

 I have not yet examined them very closely. It was remarkable that 

 such of the fragments as had any markings retain them still, after so 

 long a burial, quite as brightly as specimens I have often seen in 

 cabinets, when the collector has not been careful to exclude air and 

 light. At Kyrkjuvogr we were more fortunate; in the wall of the 

 church-yard we found two or three great auks' bones sticking in the 

 turf, which is used instead of mortar to keep the stones in their places. 

 On inquiry the turf was found to have been cut from a small hillock 

 close by. This we pretty thoroughly searched, and amongst a vast 

 number of the bones of other Alcidae there were several of the large 

 species. 



But our most profitable digging was at Baejasker. Mr. Wolley one 

 day, as he was riding along, called out to me that he saw two gare- 

 fowls' bones lying on the ground. On getting oft' his horse he found 

 them to be the distal ends of the humeri, and apparently a pair. 



