of Edinburgh , Session 187 9 - 80 . 677 
In the last published work on Newfoundland I find the following 
remarks : — - 
“The Penguin or Great Auk (Alca impennis , Linn.) about seventy- 
years ago was very plentiful on Funk Island, hut has now totally 
disappeared from the coast of Newfoundland. Incredible numbers 
of these birds were killed, their flesh being savoury food, and their 
feathers valuable. Heaps of them were burnt as fuel to warm the 
water to pick off the feathers, there being no wood on the island. 
The merchants of Bonavista at one time used to sell these birds 
to the poor people by the hundredweight instead of pork.”* 
On examining the two eggs which are now upon the table, it will 
be seen that the word “ Egale,” written upon each, points to a former 
French possessor ; but if the writing means the name of a rock or 
islet, I have been unable to trace any such locality on the maps I 
have consulted, although these are somewhat minute in their indica- 
tions of both along the entire coast-line of Newfoundland. Pro- 
fessor Newton informs me that on some of the eggs which he has 
examined the words “ St Pierre ” are plainly written, which pro- 
bably signify that such specimens have come from some rocky islet 
in the neighbourhood of that island, if not from St Pierre itself. 
This locality is off the southern coast of the group called “ Mique- 
lon,”! and is not far distant from the Penguin Islands, visited 
by Hore and others in the sixteenth century. A glance at 
any well-prepared map of Newfoundland, including the south- 
eastern shores of Labrador,! will show that all round the coasts 
there are numerous bays, with rocks and islands bearing such 
names as Penguin Island, Penguin Isles, Bird Island, Bird Isles, 
Murr Island, Murr Bocks, Gull Island, Duck Island, Shag Bocks, 
Cormorant Bocks, Petrel Islands, &c., and we not only infer that all 
those named “ Penguin ” were so called on account of the obtrusive 
numbers of Great Auks frequenting them, but that many of the 
* Newfoundland as it was, and as it is in 1877, by the Kev. Philip Tocque, 
M.A., London and Toronto, 1878. 
t Lieutenant Chappell, an intelligent and observant cruiser, in his “ Voyage 
to Newfoundland in H.M.S. ‘Rosamond,’” refers to this group (1818), but 
makes no allusion whatever to the Penguin. 
I A very good map has been published in the “ History of Newfoundland,” 
by the Rev. Charles Pedley (1863). The map accompanying Bonnycastle’s 
“ Newfoundland in 1842 ” may also be consulted with advantage. 
