Dscraaae of Birds in Mass. J. A. Allen 
The Great Auk ( Alca impennis) has recently been added to the 
list of the birds of the State, on account of the occurrence of its 
bones in the Indian shell-heaps at Ipswich. There is little reason 
to doubt, however, that the bird called “ Pengwin, or I enguin, 
mentioned as found from Cape Cod northward at the.time Euro¬ 
peans first visited this coast, really refers to the Great Auk. It 
figures in all the early enumerations of the birds' of New England 
and Newfoundland, while it does not appear in any of the lists 
referring to the region south of Massachusetts. Captain Bartholo¬ 
mew Gosnold, in 1602, found “ Pengwins ” on the Massachusetts 
coast at what he calls “ Gilbert’s Point,” in latitude 41° 40'. He 
says : “ The twentieth, by the ships side we there killed Pengwins 
and saw many sculls of fish.”* The locality, as shown by the 
context, was between the southeastern point of Cape Cod and 
Nantucket Island, probably a few miles south of Egg Island. What 
the bird called “ Pengwin ” was, that was so often referred to by 
the early explorers of the New England coast, is clearly evident 
from the following : Richard Whitbourne, in his account of his 
voyage to Newfoundland, in 1618, says, “ These Penguins are as 
bigge as Geese, and flie not, for they have but little short wings, 
& they multiply so infinitely, upon a certame flat Island [Sable 
Island], that men drive them from thence upon a boord into their 
Boates by hundreds at a time; as if God had made the mnocencie 
of so poore a creature to become such an admirable instrument for 
the sustentation of man.”+ The same bird is also referred to by 
Josselyn as the “ Wobble.” He says : “ The Wobble, an ill shaped ^ 
Fowl, having no long Feathers in their Pinions, which is the reason 3 . 
they’cannot fly, not much unlike the Pengwin; they are in the 
Spring very fat, or rather oyly, but pull’d and garbidgd, and laid 
to the Fire to roast, they yield not one drop.” t ^ 
This bird, so valuable as a “commodity,” and whose “mnocencie 
rendered its capture so easy, doubtless did not long survive on the 
coast of New England after the establishment here of permanent 
settlements. ___ 
* Purchas’s Pilgrims, Yol. IV, p. 1648 . 
j + lb., Vol. IV, p. 1886 . 
+ New Englands Rarities, p. 11 . 
Bull, n, o. o. i, Sept, 1870. p. 51T- 6V ’ [ 
sportsman an* Naturalist, Vol. HI, pp. ^-Refers to the Ureal 
Auk, the Labrador Duck, the Moas <£__ __ Audubon MSg^ne for 
1313. The Great Auk. With cu . _ SUetch of its history. 
■Jl. 88,. Ibid.. No. 8, March 17- P . 
SPOT. & Stream. vol.A.A.vii.4. 
The Home of the Great Auk. (Pop. Sci. Monthly, Aug, 
Lucas. F. A. 
1S8S, pp- 456^464-) ^ __ 
1353. Skeletons of the Great Auk. 
No. 4, Aug. 18, p. 65. Discovery 
From the ' 
‘Boston Herald.' Ibid., 
of its bones in the guano deposits 
.. r „ , & Stream. Yol.*** A 
Funk Island, off the coast of Newfoundland. HOC- - a note 
on the extinction of the Great Auk at the Funk Islands (p. 48), by the 
8ame * Amen JTatnralist* Vol,10«Jan. 
Collett, Robert. Ueber Alca im penn is in Norwegen. 
Ornith. Vereins in Wien, 1884.) 
upon the History and Anatomy of the Great Auk. (Rep. Nat Mus 
1887-88, pp. 493-529, pll. lxxi-lxxiii.) 
(Mittheil. des 
