OK 
to have been seen is that recorded by Colonel Drummond Hay 
(‘ Ibis,’ 1801, p. 397), as having been seen by himself on the banks 
of Newfoundland in 1852. Whether this species is finallycxtirpated, 
or Avhether it yet lingers on some inaccessible skerry of the 
Iceland coast, or in the Newfoundland seas, it is impossible to 
say, but one fond hope long entertained, though without a particle 
of evidence in its favour, has been effectually destroyed by Prof. 
Steenstrup, wlio has clearly shown that it is not in the icebound 
seas of the Arctic Ocean that we must look for the survdvors, if 
any, and that in the single instance in which it has been said to 
have been procured within the Arctic Circle, the locality is very 
doubtful. 
I cannot dismiss this subject without quoting the following 
passage from the article in the ‘Natural History Peview’, 1865, pp. 
487, 488, to which I am mainly indebted for tlie foregoing summarv, 
and which so well epitomises the fate of this fine bird : — “ ‘Whether, 
however, the species be extinct or not, the fate of the Gare-fowl has 
still much interest. If it still exists, its doom will probably be 
sealed by its re-discovery. Por all practical purposes, therefore, we 
may speak of it as a thing of the past, and regarded in this light 
the subject becomes even more than interesting, because owing to 
the recent date of the bird’s extirpation (whether completed or 
not), we possess more information respecting the exterminating 
process, than we do in the case of any other extinct species. 
"W ithout drawing any overstrained inferences, we see how the 
merciless hand of man, armed perhaps, only with the rudest of 
weapons, has diiven the Gare-fowl, first from the shores of 
Denmark, and then from those of Scotland. At a later period it 
has been successively banished from the Orkneys, the Fieroes, and 
St. Kilda. Then, too, a casual but natural event has accelerated 
its fate. Ihe eruption of a submarine volcano on the coast of 
Iceland, by laying low one of its chief abodes, has contributed 
elFectually to its destruction. But worse than all this has been the 
blow which on the discovery of America came upon the portion of 
the race inhabiting the Newfoundland islets, where it was brought 
suddenly face to face with a powerful and hitherto unknown 
