394 Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley*s Researches 
no Gare-fowls could be found. In 1858 Mr. Wolley and I re¬ 
mained at Kyrkjuvogr, with tw T o short intervals, from May 21st 
to July 14th. Our chief object was to reach not only Eldey, but 
the still more distant Geirfugladrangr, on which, probably, no 
man has set foot since the Swedish Count, in 1821, with so 
much difficulty reached it. Boats and men were engaged, and 
stores for the trip laid in; but not a single opportunity oc¬ 
curred when a landing would have been practicable. I may 
say that it was with heavy hearts we witnessed the season 
wearing away without giving us the wished-for chance. The 
following summer was equally tempestuous, and no voyage could 
be attempted. Last year (1860), on the 13th of June, Vilhjal- 
mur successfully landed on Eldey, but he found no trace of a 
Great Auk, and the weather prevented his proceeding to the 
outer island. Later in the year a report reached Copenhagen, 
which was subsequently published in the newspaper f Flyve- 
posten* (No. 273), to the effect that two eggs of this bird had 
been taken on one of the skerries and sold in England for fabu¬ 
lous prices. Through the kind interest of several friends, I 
think I am in a position to assert that the statement is utterly 
false. The last accounts I have received from Iceland, under 
date of June the 20th in the present year (1861), make no 
mention of any expedition this summer. I am not very san¬ 
guine of a successful result, but I trust yet to be the means of 
ascertaining whether, at the sinking of the true Geirfuglasker, 
some of the colony, deprived of their wonted haunt, may not 
have shifted their quarters to the Geirfugladrangr, as others, we 
presume, did to Eldey, and to this end I have taken and shall 
continue to take the necessary steps. 
But to sum up the account of Mr. Wolley's personal re- 
earches. The very day after our arrival at Kyrkjuvogr he 
picked up from a heap of blown sand, two or three birds* wing- 
bones [humeri)*. He was at once struck with their likeness 
to the figure illustrating Professor Steenstrup*s paper—that 
valuable paper to which I first of all referred, and which has 
* They were from the side of a channel blown out by the wind from a 
heap formerly drifted there, such as in the eastern counties of England 
would be called a “ Sand-gall.” 
