669 
of Edinburgh, Session 1879 - 80 . 
which year all traces of the living bird have been lost. Very great 
interest has consequently been felt by all classes of naturalists in 
everything that relates to the Great Auk ; and the discovery of two 
specimens of its egg, in addition to those already recorded as 
existing in collections, is an event which is sure to create some 
degree of excitement, not only among egg collectors, but among 
scientific ornithologists in all parts of the world. 
Some years ago, in writing a history of this remarkable bird as a 
Scottish species, I made a very careful summary of the records of 
its occurrence in North Britain, from the earliest published accounts 
of the bird until its final disappearance ; and to this account, which 
is given in the “ Birds of the West of Scotland,”* I may perhaps be 
permitted to refer, f 
* Gray, “ Birds of the West of Scotland, including the Outer Hebrides,” 1871, 
pp. 441-453. 
t I have the pleasure of inserting here the following letter which has been 
addressed to me since this paper was read. It narrates the capture of the last 
of the Auks in Scotland : — 
“Edinburgh, 17 th June 1880. 
“ My dear Sir, — I think you will be interested in knowing that when at St 
Kilda on the 14th of this month I found there was a man still living there 
who assisted at the capture of Fleming’s Great Auk in 1821-22. 
‘ ‘ Having shown a drawing of an Auk to the collected natives to see if they 
had any knowledge of it, they said they knew it used to be there long ago, 
but they had never seen it. Subsequently they told me the man was still 
there who caught the last Great Auk. 
“ I had him immediately brought to me. His name is Donald M‘Queen, 
Sen. He is a very little man, and is also so much bent, that he does not now 
stand much higher than the Great Auk did. He said he was 73 years of age, 
but to all appearance he is considerably more. 
“ Donald disclaimed having been (as his neighbour reported) the person 
who actually caught the Auk. He informed me that he was one of four per- 
sons in a boat on the east side of the Island when they discovered the bird 
sitting on a low ledge of the cliff. 
‘ ‘ Two of their number (then young men) were landed, one on either side of 
the bird, and at some distance from it. These two cautiously approached it, 
whilst he and another boy rowed the boat straight towards the Auk, which 
ultimately leaped down towards the sea, when one of the youths, having got 
directly under it, caught it in his arms. The old man with much animation 
went through the pantomime of grasping a supposed bird in his arms and 
holding it tightly to his breast. 
‘ ‘ A partial error of the old St Kildian served to identify this Auk with 
Fleming’s. He said the people who got it ‘ tied a string to its leg and killed 
it.’ 
