THE PUFFINS AND AUKS 
305 
beaks, and I believe all existing species are black 
above and white below. The beaks show but 
little tendency to the sportive flattening so 
characteristic of the puffins. 
These birds are very strong divers, and get a 
great portion of their food from the bottom of 
the sea. The two species found all along our 
Pacific coast, .on the Farallone Islands and 
Santa Catalina, are the Rhinoceros Auklet 1 2 (14 
inches long), and the Cassin Auklet, the former 
so called because of an erect horny shield at the 
base of its beak. The Least Auklet 3 is only 64 
inches long — about the bulk of a small, thinly 
feathered screech-owl. 
The Razor-Billed Auk , 3 of the North At- 
lantic Ocean, sometimes wanders in summer 
to the coast of Maine, and in winter even mi- 
grates as far south as New Jersey. (Robert 
Ridgway.) It is 17 inches long, and is the 
largest living member of the group of auks. As 
might be expected, it is a distinguished resident 
of the Bird Rocks. 
The Great Auk is now a bird of history and 
museums only. It met its fate on Funk 
Island, a treeless dot in the sea, about thirty 
miles northwest of Newfoundland, which was 
the first land met with as the Auks swam south- 
1 Cer-o-rhin'ca mo-no-cer-a'ta. 
2 Sim-o-rhyn' chus pu-sil'lus. 
3 Al'ca tor’ da. 
ward on their annual migrations. The wings of 
this bird were so little developed that it was 
wholly unable to fly, and while on land it was 
any one’s prey. 
The thousands of Great Auks that visited 
Funk Island naturally attracted men who 
wished to turn them to account. Whalemen 
were landed, and left there to kill Auks and 
secure their feathers. The birds were either 
driven into pens and slaughtered there, or else 
the pens were used to contain their dead bodies. 
Apparently great numbers of the bodies were 
burned for fuel. About 1844, the species be- 
came entirely extinct. 
When Funk Island was visited by Mr. F. A. 
Lucas in 1887, in quest of Auk remains, he found 
deposits of bones several feet in thickness, 
evidently where the bodies of slaughtered 
birds had been heaped up, and left to decay. 
Out of these deposits, several barrels of mixed 
bones and peaty earth were taken which yielded 
several complete skeletons of that species. 
Had the Great Auk possessed wings for flight, 
the chances are that it would not have fallen 
such easy prey to its exterminators. The 
moral lesson of its fate is — in these days of 
fire-arms and limitless ammunition, no bird 
should be hatched without steel-plate armor, 
strong wings for flight, and swift legs for run- 
ning away. 
