of Edinburgh, Session 1879-80. 
673 
had been extirpated from its old haunts;* and in 1838, Audubon, 
who has very little indeed to say regarding the species, and nothing 
whatever from personal observation, writes as follows : — “ The only 
authentic account of the occurrence of this bird on our coast that 
I possess was obtained from Mr Henry Havell, brother of my 
engraver, who, when on his passage from New York to England, 
hooked a Great Auk on the Banks of Newfoundland in extremely 
boisterous weather. On being hauled on board it was left 
at liberty on the deck; it walked very awkwardly, often tumb- 
ling over, bit every one within reach of its powerful bill, and 
refused food of all kinds. After continuing several days on board 
it was restored to its proper element. ”f This, as I have already 
remarked, was probably the last time the Great Auk was seen in 
that part of the world. The same author also states that when he 
was in Labrador (no date is given) many of the fishermen had 
assured him that the “Penguin,” as they named the bird, bred upon 
a low rocky island to the south-east of Newfoundland, and that 
great numbers of the young were destroyed for bait. Corroborative 
information had been given him by several individuals in New- 
foundland. 
From that time until the present day all our information regard- 
ing the bird is more or less traditional in its nature. In 1841, how- 
over, ornithologists and others interested in the fate of the species 
were startled by the announcement made by Peter Stuvitz, a Nor- 
wegian naturalist, that he had collected quantities of Penguins’ bones 
on the Funk Islands, and had seen the ruins of the rude stone 
enclosures into which former visitors had driven the poor birds 
before being massacred. J Many of these bones are now in the 
Museum of the University of Copenhagen, and were the first relics 
fishing stations on the coast of Newfoundland, who still remember the bird 
and its odd figure. 
* “ There was formerly on this coast a species of birds of the diving genus, 
which from their inability to fly were always observed within the space 
between the land and the Great Bank, and were once so abundant as to 
have given their name to several islands on that coast, but they are now 
utterly extinct. They were known by the name of Penguins .” — History of 
Newfoundland , by L. A. Anspach, 1819, p. 393. 
t Orn. Biog., vol. iv., 1838, p. 316. 
t The Zoology of Ancient Europe, by Alfred Newton, M.A., Cambridge, 
1862 
