384 Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley's Researches 
or towards the end of the last century this Geirfuglasker was 
constantly visited by fowling expeditions. Local tradition makes 
the same assertion, assigning the leadership of these adven¬ 
turous exploits to one Svenbjorn Egilsson, born in 1700, and 
Hannes Erlendsson, born in 1705 ; but later their place was 
taken by one Hreidar Jonsson, whom people now living can re¬ 
member as a blind pauper some eighty years of age, with a long 
beard. This hero was born, as it appears, in 1719, and used to 
go yearly to the skerry on behalf of Kort Jonsson, a rich farmer 
at Kyrkjubol, who flourished between 1710 and 1760. Hreidar 
is even reported to have made during one summer three expedi¬ 
tions, in which he acted as foreman. After his time the 
practice seems to have died out; but one witness informed us 
that, to the best of his recollection, people had made voyages 
between 1784 and 1800. Eaber, who was in Iceland in 1821, 
and then attempted to reach the skerry (of which exploit I shall 
presently speak), tells us ( op.cit . p. 48), that for a long period 
these perilous expeditions had been relinquished—probably be¬ 
cause the results from repeated performance fell short of the 
risk incurred. But the birds were not wholly banished; for 
Thorwalder Oddsson, born about 1793, told us, that when he 
was a boy, some nine or eleven years old, he found one on the 
shore at Selvogr, and a few years later, probably between 1808 
and 1810, two were killed at Hellirsknipa, between Skagen and 
Keblavik. Erltndur GmSmundsson, an old man with a most 
retentive memory, showed us the gun with which he shot one of 
them. He was in a boat with his brother-in-law, A'sgrimur 
Ssemonsson, who died in 1847, and the occurrence happened in 
the month of September. The Gare-fowls were sitting on a 
rock : A'sgrimur fired first, and killed one; the other took to the 
water, and was shot by Erlendur. They each ate their re¬ 
spective birds, and very good meat they found them. A third 
is said to have been shot a few years later, near the same spot, 
by one Jacob Jonsson, now dead ; this also was eaten. 
The cause, however, of the most wholesale destruction of 
Great Auks in modern times must be sought elsewhere. In 
1807 hostilities commenced between England and Denmark. 
The following year, the ‘ Salamine/ a privateer of twenty-two 
