670 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
Regarding its existence in other parts of the world there can 
he no reasonable doubt that the Great Auk had, as already 
mentioned, its headquarters on the rocky and almost inaccessible 
islets off the coast of Newfoundland. In these localities, if we 
may judge from the writings of the early navigators, it existed 
in very large communities, especially during the breeding season, 
and was taken in boatloads for sustenance to the ships’ crews. We 
read, for example, in Captaine Richard Whitbourne’s “Discourse 
and Discovery of Newfoundland,” published in 1622, that “these 
Penguins ” (the name by which the Great Auk was known on the 
coasts) “are as bigge as geese and fly not, for they have but a little 
short wing, and they multiply so infinitely upon a certaine island that 
men drive them from thence upon aboord into their boats by hundreds 
at a time, as if God had made the innocency of so poor a creature to 
become such an admirable instrument for the sustentation of man.” 
Other writers speak of parties landing upon the rocks and knocking 
down with clubs hundreds of Auks, which they carried to their ships 
to be used as food. In short, we know that nearly all the French 
sailors of that and later periods trading between Havre de Grace 
or other French ports and Newfoundland, victualled their ships 
regularly with Great Auks taken in such places as the Funk or 
Penguin Islands, which are situated on the east coast ; and that on 
leaving home they regulated their supply of provisions accordingly. 
It is stated in a letter written from Bristow to Mr Richard Hakluyt 
of the Middle Temple by Mr Anthonie Parkhurst, and dated the 
15th of November 1578, that “the Frenchmen that fish neere the 
grand baie doe bring small store of flesh with them, but victuall 
themselves always with these birdes ” ; * and again, in “ a report of 
the voyage and successe thereof, attempted in the yeere of our Lord 
1583 by Sir Humfrey Gilbert, knight, &c., by Mr Edward Haies, 
gentleman, &c., it is stated that the French men barrell them vp 
with salt.” f Such a fate for the poor Auks was foreshadowed 
in 1536, in which year Penguin Island, one of their haunts, 
‘ ‘ When I told him they did not kill it, he said he might have forgotten 
what he had heard about it after it was taken away. 
“Mr Mackenzie, the factor of the island, who was present, said Donald 
M ‘Queen was a trustworthy person, and that I might rely upon his telling 
the truth. — Yours faithfully, R. Scot Skirving.” 
* Hakluyt, vol. iii. pp. 172, 173. t Ibid. vol. iii. p. 191. 
