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Mr. A. Newton on Mr. J. Wolley's Researches 
quiries about this specimen have not yet resulted in obtaining 
any further information respecting it *. 
I am well aware that nothing but the extraordinary interest 
that attaches to this bird warrants me in occupying so much 
space. It must be remembered that it is not merely a matter 
with which ornithologists only are concerned, but is one of far 
higher and more general importance. “ A consideration of such 
instances of modern partial or total extinctions,” says Professor 
Owen ( loc. cit.) in reference to this very case, “ may best throw 
light on, and suggest the truest notions of, the causes of ancient 
extinctions.” If this be not sufficient excuse for me, I must 
urge the great difficulty I have had in condensing the numerous 
particulars of information which Mr. Wolley’s labours have 
placed at my disposal. It would have been far easier to have 
been more diffuse. In Iceland all, with but one exception, were 
eager to tell us all they knew, and that in the most careful 
* While on the subject of the bird’s occurrence in this part of the world, 
I wish to remark on Mr. Cassin’s statement in Prof. Baird’s ‘ Birds of 
America’ (p. 901), touching the Great Auk “ figured by Mr. Audubon, and 
obtained by him on the banks of Newfoundland,” &c. Now in 1857 I was 
assured by Mr. Bell, the well-known taxidermist at New York, who knew 
Mr. Audubon intimately, that he never possessed but one specimen of this 
bird; and if we turn to Prof. MacGillivray’s ‘ History of British Birds ’ 
(vol. v. p. 359), we find him saying that he never saw but two examples of 
the species, one in the British Museum, and “ the other belonging to Mr. 
y^0 Audubon, and procured by him in London” I have also to set right a 
mistake made on this side of the water. In their Catalogue of Norfolk 
and Suffolk Birds, printed in the ‘Linnean Transactions’ (xv. p. 61), 
Messrs. Shepherd and Whitear say, they had been told by Sir William 
Hooker that a Great Auk had been “ killed near Southwold ” in the latter 
county. That eminent botanist, however, has most kindly informed me 
that not only has he no recollection of any such occurrence, but, having 
taken some trouble to inquire about it, he is satisfied that the statement 
originated in error. I must add further, that the reported instance of a 
bird taken near Marlow in Buckinghamshire, on the estate of Sir William 
Clayton, first published, I think, by Dr. Fleming (Brit. Anim. p. 130), on 
Mr. Bullock’s authority, seems to me very unlikely. On the other hand, I 
may mention that Sir William Milner tells me that within the last few 
years he has become possessed of a fine Great Auk, which he has reason 
to believe was killed in the Hebrides. This bird, I am informed, was 
found to have been stuffed with turf. 
