681 
of Edinburgh, Session 1879 - 80 . 
a notion that when this bird appears it portends some extraordinary 
event. Of this he assures us being told that the year before the late 
King Frederick IY. died there appeared several, and that none had 
been seen before for many years.” * It is worthy of note that in 
“ the new and general map of the island ” accompanying Horrebow’s 
work, the Geirfuglasker and Eldey are there marked as “ Vulture, 
or Birds Islands.” 
It may not he out of place here to refer to the fact of both French 
and English writers using the term Pingouin or Penguin, in speak- 
ing of the Eazor Bill ( Alca tor da) as well as of the Great Auk. 
Thus, Buffon (Ois. vol. ix. p. 393) has given Le Grand Pingouin 
as the name of the Great Auk, while the Eazor Bill is simply Le 
Pingouin. Temminck (Manuel, vol. ii. p. 937-939) also gives the 
name Pingouin brachiptere and Pingouin macroptere ; the former 
for the Great Auk and the latter for the Eazor Bill. MacGillivray 
(British ’Wafcer-hirds, vol. ii. p. 346) applies the name Gurfel to the 
Eazor Bill, while Fleming (British Animals, 1828, p. 130) introduces 
as Welsh synonymes for the same bird, Gar fit and Gwalch y Penwaig. 
The name Penguin had apparently at one time been applied in this 
country to the Eazor Bill in popular works, as I find from a map of 
the Western Isles, published in Edinburgh in 1823, in which it is 
stated that “ the south-west coast of Bernera and Mingulay are 
remarkably bold precipices rising perpendicularly from the sea in 
lofty cliffs of gneiss which are frequented in summer by innumer- 
able flocks of Puffins, Razor-bill Penguins and Kittywakes. These 
birds disappear early in autumn with their young.” 
For the last forty years, if not for a longer period, the money 
value attached to the eggs and skins of the Great Auk has contri- 
buted in a very material degree to the destruction of the species. 
Caterers for collections, public and private, caused a demand, to 
supply which organised parties visited the bird’s haunts even at the 
peril of their lives, and effectually exterminated the bird. The 
very last expedition, as we have seen, resulted in but two birds 
being captured, and it has a most melancholy interest when we 
reflect that from that time till now the Great Auk has been a thing 
O 
of the past. Judging from published records it would seem that 
there are about seventy skins and about as many eggs of this bird 
* Natural History of Iceland, &c., by N. Horrebow, folio, London, 1758. 
