XXXIX. THE GARE-FOWL AND ITS HISTORIANS.

(1.) ET BIDRAG TIL GEIRFUGLENS NATURHISTORIE OG SÆRLIGT TIL KUNDSKABEN OM DENS TIDLIGERE UDBREDNINGSKREDS. Af J. Jap. Sm. Steenstrup. Kjöbenhavn: 1857. (Naturh. Foren. Vidensk. Meddelelser. 1855. Nos. 3-7.)

(2.) ABSTRACT OF MR. J. WOLLEY'S RESEARCHES IN ICELAND RESPECTING THE GARE-FOWL, OR GREAT AUK (Alca impennis, Linn.). By Alfred Newton. The Ibis, 1861, pp. 374-399.

(3.) UEBER Plautus impennis, BRUENN. Von William Preyer. Journal für Ornithologie, 1862, pp. 110-124, 337-356.

(4.) UEBER DAS AUSSTERBEN DER THIERARTEN IN PHYSIOLOGISCHER UND NICHT PHYSIOLOGISCHER HINSICHT, &c. Von K. E. v. Baer. Bulletin de l'Academie Impériale de St. Pétersbourg. Tome VI. pp. 513-576.

(5.) DESCRIPTION OF THE SKELETON OF THE GREAT AUK, or GARFOWL, (Alca impennis, L.) by Professor Owen. Transactions of the Zoological Society of London. Vol. V. pp. 317–335.

SOME twenty years ago no one, except in a select circle of ornithologists, would have had the courage to utter the name of the Great Auk. It is ten to one that anybody in general society mentioning such a bird would have been taken for an aspirate-murdering cockney, and the subject of his remark supposed to be some large Falconine. Now-a-days this is all changed. Alca impennis has found its way into works of fiction, such as the Water Babies, and the Travels of Umbra, and has even penetrated into the columns of Punch and The Times, so that there are few persons of ordinary information who have not some notions of its nature and peculiarities. Yet, as we

shall presently try to show our readers, the general knowledge concerning this singular bird is extremely defective, and we find even zoologists of the highest reputation making a curious succession of blunders when they treat of its history.

In Mr. Yarrell's account of this species-first published in December, 1842-it is properly enough termed, "a very rare British Bird," but no hint of its probable fate is conveyed to the reader, as indeed need not much be wondered at, for the exterminating process is generally one that excites little or no attention until the doom of the victim is sealed. Furthermore, as naturalists, almost without exception,

had chosen, without the least good reason, to account Alca impennis an inhabitant of the very highest northern latitudes, and the regions of " thick-ribbed ice," it did not seem very extraordinary that, in the then desuetude of arctic exploration, no voyager had of late met with it. Besides, too, as we shall presently see, there was at that time a constant, though very limited, supply of specimens which kept dribbling one by one into the market, so that now it is not at all easy to say when people became alive to the fact that the bird, if not extinct, was gradually approaching the verge of complete destruction.

Perhaps, among our own countrymen, the alarm first spread when, in 1846, a gentleman much addicted to the fascinating pursuit of birds'-nesting went to Iceland, and found the idea there taken root, that an end had come to the whole race. Indeed, we happen to know that only a few years before this period less than thirty shillings was the price for which a specimen of the egg was sold by a London ornithologist, who never had the reputation of making a bad bargain, while, not many years later, we ourselves saw another knocked-down at public auction for as many pounds.*

It now seems to be the prevalent opinion that Alca impennis is entirely extinct. Whether this opinion be well founded or not is a matter we shall consider further on, as we propose, in noticing some monographical papers which have of late appeared in this country and others, to take a general survey of its history.

The first paper in our list, so modestly called a " Contribution" to the natural history of this bird, and bearing the honoured name of Professor Steenstrup, is, we think, the only complete treatise on the subject that may be entirely relied on, and it is greatly to be regretted that no translation of it has ever appeared in England. Herr Preyer's labours, extending over the same ground, are unfortunately not so trustworthy. Professor von Baer's paper is simply a German translation of the larger and more interesting portion of the Danish naturalist's essay, with the addition of only two or three original but unimportant remarks; the fact, however, of the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg allowing a translation of it to appear in their Bulletin shows the high value attached to Professor Steen

It may be remarked that no reference to the impending fate of Alca impennis is made by an ornithologist so well informed as the late Hugh Strickland, though in his Dodo and its Kindred,' published in 1848, he mentions the Irish Elk and Northern Manatee as instances of species becoming extinct within the human epoch.

strup's researches. The other two papers we have named are, as their titles indicate, more special in their scope.

It has been already told by Sir John Lubbock, in the pages of this Review,' (1861, p. 497) how that remains of Alca impennis have been found in the kitchen-middens of Denmark. This discovery turned Professor Steenstrup's attention to the subject, and setting to work with much zeal, he, after long and careful investigation, compiled the admirable history of the bird we have mentioned. Of the information thus collected we intend to give as concise a summary as we are able, supplementing it by what we can draw from other sources, but we shall diverge somewhat from the Professor's arrangement of his matter. We take it for granted that our readers would not care to know precise details of every individual occurrence of the bird on record, except in the case of British specimens, though it is no vain boast on our part to say that we could give nearly all of them "chapter and verse," and as we have placed at the head of this article the titles of the five papers whence we derive most of our facts, we shall for brevity's sake only add references to those authorities of which no mention is therein made.

That Alca impennis, in pre-historic times, frequented the shallow firths and straits which then, still more than now, intersected Denmark, is proved by the discovery, to which allusion has been already made, of the bones of two individuals at Meilgaard in Jutland, and of a third at Havelse, in Zealand. When we reflect on the very small proportion which the number of preserved, and still less of recovered remains must bear to that of the lost ones, these facts are enough to justify the inference that the bird was not uncommon there in those days. But we need scarcely say that within the period of either tradition or of books, we have no record of its resorting to this district, and the only instance of its occurrence there, is that mentioned by Benicken, who says that one was shot in Kiel Harbour, about 1790. On the other side of the Cattegat, however, several examples have been met with. In Bohus län an old fisherman assured Professor Nilsson that in his youth he had seen the Garefowl on Tistlarna, while Dr. Edman (the correspondent of our Pennant) wrote to the same naturalist, that at the end of the last century one was killed off Marstrand, and another is said to have been found dead, so lately as the winter of 1838, near Frederiksstad, in Norway. Elsewhere, in that country, there is no good testimony of its occurrence, for though Hans Ström positively identifies the

Angle mager" (hook-maker) of the Sondmör fishermen, with Linnæus' description of Alca impennis, it seems more than probable that he has confounded that bird with the Harelda glacialis of modern naturalists, and the kind of evidence offered by other witnesses as to some supposed appearances of the Gare-fowl further to the north must be rejected, not merely as inconclusive, but when taken in connexion with our actual knowledge as highly improbable.

Turning now to our own island, we have an instance of what has of late happened several times, namely a discovery here of like nature to those already made in other countries. Last year (1864) in a kitchen-midden, on the coast of Caithness, the remains of at least two Gare-fowls were found, and it may, as in the case of Denmark, be fairly presumed from this circumstance, that in days of yore, the bird was not uncommonly met with on our northern shores, while its incapacity for flight, its size, and its sapidity, would of course render it a much sought prize for the men of the Stone period.

Historic records of its occurrence in the British isles, do not, however, date very far back. In Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages and Travels (vol. iii. p. 730), in an 'Account of Hirta [better known now-a-days as S. Kilda] and Rona, &c., by the Lord Register, Sir George M'Kenzie, of Tarbat,' the writer says of the former as follows:-" it is incredible what number of feed fowls frequent the rocks there. * * There be many sorts of these fowls; some of them of strange shapes, among which there is one they call the gare-fowl, which is bigger than a goose, and hath eggs as big, almost, as those of an ostrich."

For a man to think his own geese swans is nothing, but for his Gare-fowls to lay eggs almost as big as Ostriches', is a stretch of imagination indeed, for the worthy knight of Tarbert. However, his friend and brother knight, Sir Robert Sibbald, to whom this Account' was given, cuts it down laconically, and contents himself with enumerating, in 1684, in his 'Scotia Illustrata,' among the birds of North Britain :

"Avis Gare dicta, Corvo Marino similis, Ovo maximo."

Pinkerton gives us no clue to the date of this communication, or to the source whence he reprinted it. It was clearly, however, written prior to the next passage we quote.

On the 1st June, 1697, "M. Martin, Gent." landed on S. Kilda, where he resided three weeks, and in his naive description of the inhabitants of this island, feathered and featherless, remarks:

"The Sea-Fowl are, first, Gairfowl, being the stateliest, as well as the largest Sort, and above the Size of a Solan Goose, of a black Colour, red about the Eyes, a large white Spot under each, a long broad Bill; it stands stately, its whole Body erected, its Wings short, flies not at all; lays its Egg upon the bare Rock, which if taken away, she lays no more for that Year; she is whole-footed, and has the hatching Spot upon her Breast, i.e. a bare Spot from which the Feathers have fallen off with the Heat in hatching; its Egg is twice as big as that of a Solan Goose, and is variously spotted, Black, Green, and Dark; it comes without Regard to any Wind, appears the first of May, and goes away about the middle of June."

Professor Steenstrup considers that this description of Martin's bears the mark of being that of an eye-witness. But to us the point seems not so certain. If he himself did see the Gare-fowl it was probably only from a distance, or he would surely have never imagined that the bird was "red about the Eyes." But, indeed, the matter is of little importance. He lived long enough upon the island to have obtained a very good account of it from the natives, and his evidence with regard to most other subjects which we are still in a position to test is extremely trust-worthy, more so probably than the next we have to quote. This is from the History of St. Kilda,' by Kenneth Macaulay, who, at the instance of the Christian Knowledge Society, passed the month of June 1758 upon the island. He certainly did not see a Gare-fowl, but he mentions it as "an absolute stranger I am apt to believe, in every other part of Scotland," and then goes on to say that "The St. Kildians do not receive an annual visit from this strange bird as from all the rest. It keeps at a distance from them, they know not where, for a course of years. From what land or ocean it makes its uncertain voyages to their isle is perhaps a mystery in nature. A gentleman, who had been in the West Indies,* informed me, that according to the description given of him, he must be the Penguin of that clime, a fowl that points out the proper soundings to seafaring People."

Whether the bird was even then beginning to show premonitory

*It will of course be recollected that a hundred years ago the use of the term "West Indies was not restricted to the Greater and Lesser Antilles.