in Tceland respecting the Gare-fowl. 383 
nexion with this fact, it may not be amiss to observe that Ander¬ 
son, some time Burgomaster of Hamburg, in his account of Ice¬ 
land, remarks* on the occurrence of many Great Auks the 
year before the death of King Frederick IV. (of Denmark), which 
took place in 1730. Hereupon Niels Horrebow, whose prin¬ 
cipal object was to contradict all Anderson had said, with some 
reason ridiculesf his predecessor's notion of that event being 
thus heralded, and asserts that no more birds were seen in the 
year mentioned than previously. But it seems to me improbable 
that Anderson should have no grounds for his statement, though 
of course I do not admit the portentous inference, and, if so, it 
is not unlikely that the renewal of visits to the Geirfuglasker, in 
1732, may have been prompted by the report the last-named 
author mentions of the bird's abundance three years before. On 
the other hand, I am unable to connect this reported abundance 
with any other physical phenomenon. I do not find that the 
period just previous to 1729 was marked by any volcanic out¬ 
bursts, or the presence of any extraordinary amount of floating 
ice, either of which events might be supposed to affect the bird's 
movements. 
In 1755, Eggert Olafsen and Bjarne Povelsen, to whose accu¬ 
rate account of Iceland I have already alluded, explored the 
Gulbringu Sysla, which comprehends the south-western corner 
of the island, and they passed the following winter at Vr<5ey 
(op. cit. pp. 848, 849), during which time it is mentioned that 
they saw both the bird and its egg, which had been obtained from 
the Reykjanes skerry by some SuSnes boats (p. 983). A few 
years later, Mohr in his work, which I have also before mentioned, 
says (op. cit. p. 28) that he was assured by the peasants that the 
bird was blind when on land, a notion not entertained by the 
Fseroese, but which still prevails in Iceland. He was also told 
that in former days people had filled their boats with its eggs from 
the Reykjanes station, and though he does not expressly say so, I 
think we may infer from these authorities that about the middle 
* ‘ Herrn Johann Anderson, &c. Nachrichten von Island, Gronland und 
der Strasse Davis, &c/ Frankfurt u. Leipzig, 1747, p. 52. 
t ‘ Tilforladelige Efterretninger om Island, &c.’ Kjobenhavn, 1752, 
pp. 175,176. 
