399 
in Iceland respecting the Gare-fowl. 
manner. I have already mentioned several persons from whom 
we obtained valuable intelligence, and unjust as it may appear 
to the rest, I must forbear from naming more. The chief au¬ 
thorities both in church and state afforded us every facility, and 
all orders and degrees of men and women followed their exam¬ 
ple. From the Governor surrounded by the comforts of modern 
civilization through every grade to the unhappy leper, dwelling, 
as his ancestors may have done centuries ago, amid filth and 
scarcity, we received an amount of attention, of which it is diffi¬ 
cult to express the full value without seeming guilty of exag¬ 
geration. Alas that it is left to me only to make this state¬ 
ment ! To all those concerned, then, I have to return our 
acknowledgments, and to no one more than to our honest and 
intelligent guide and interpreter Geir Zoega of Reykjavik, who for 
more than two months was our constant and willing attendant. 
Whether the Gare-fowl be already extirpated or still existing in 
some unknown spot, it is clear that its extinction, if not already 
accomplished, must speedily follow on its rediscovery. I have 
therefore to beseech all who may be connected with the matter to 
do their utmost that such rediscovery should be turned to the best 
account. If in this point we neglect our opportunities, future 
naturalists will justly reproach us. The mere possession of a 
few skins or eggs, more or less, is as nothing. Our science de¬ 
mands something else—that we shall transmit to posterity a less 
perishable inheritance. I have to urge, in no spirit of partiality, 
but purely in the cause of knowledge, the claims of our own 
country in this event. Our metropolis possesses the best-stocked 
vivarium in the world. An artist residing among us is un¬ 
questionably the most skilful animal draughtsman of this or any 
other period. By common consent the greatest comparative ana¬ 
tomist of the day is the naturalist who superintends the nations 
zoological collection. Surely no more fitting repository for the 
very last of the Great Auks could be found than the Gardens 
of the Zoological Society of London, where living they would be 
immortalized by Mr. Wolf’s pencil, and dead be embalmed in a 
memoir by Professor Owen’s pen. 
Elveden, August 8, 1861. 
