1583 by Sir Humfrey Gilbert knight, &c., written by M. Edward Haies gentleman, &c."

"We had sight of an Iland named Penguin, of a foule there breeding in abundance, almost incredible, which cannot flie, their wings not being able to carry their body, being very large (not much lesse then a goose) and exceeding fat: which the French men vse to take without difficulty vpon that Iland, and to barrell them vp with salt. But for lingering of time we had made vs there the

like prouision."

This report of the French practice just mentioned, is confirmed in a singular manner by many other records which Professor Steenstrup cites, among others by the narrative of Jacques Cartier's Third Voyage, in 1540. The account is also printed in Ternaux-Compans' Archives' (vol. i. pp. 125, 126), but it does not seem to us quite certain that the "Apponath "* may not have been some other species of Alcide. After speaking of the incredible abundance of birds at the so-called "Isle des Oyseaux," near Cape Bonavista, the writer goes on to observe, "neantmoins il y en a cent fois plus à l'entour d'icelle, et en l'air que dedans, desquels les vns sont grands comme pies, noirs & blancs, ayans le bec de corbeau: ilz sont tousiours en mer, et ne peuvent voler haut, d'autant que leurs ailes sont petites, point plus grandes que la moitié de la main, avec lesquelles toutefois ilz volent auec telle vistesse à fleur d'eau, que les autres oyseaux en l'air. Ilz sont excessiuement gras, et estoient appellez par c'eux du païs Apponath, desquelz noz deux barques se chargerent en moins de demiheure, comme l'on auroit peu faire de cailloux, de sorte qu'en chasque nauire nous en fismes saler quatre ou cinq tonneaux, sans ceux que nous mangeasmes frais."

It would be easy to continue the series of similar accounts, which as we have said Professor Steenstrup has collected and reprinted with singular industry. One of them speaking of the birds says, it "n'estoit question que d'entrer en terre, et les toucher deuant soy aux basteaux, ainsi que moutons à la boucherie, pour les faire entrer;" another, "il y en a de certaines especes qui ne peuuent presque voler, et qu'on peut aisement assommer à coups de bastons, comme auoient faiet les Mattelots d'un autre nauire, quis auant nous en auaient emply leur chalouppe, plusieurs tonneaux des œufs, qu'ils trouuerent

* This word is also spelled "Aponars," and Professor Steenstrup suggests that it is a French corruption of Harpooner."

repro

aux nids." We think we have brought forward enough to show that no species could long withstand the continuance of so murderous a persecution, carried on too at the very season of duction. It is therefore far from being surprising that Anspach, writing in 1819 (Hist. Newfoundland, p. 393), should speak, as do all the authors who have succeeded him on the same subject, of the Penguin" as extirpated in this quarter. Sir Richard Bonnycastle (Newfoundland in 1842, vol. i. p. 232, note) quotes a singular passage from the "English Pilot," for 1794-a work we ourselves have not been able to examine. Our readers will, of course, smile at the asserted an-homochroism of the bird's eye-spots.

"It

"There is also another thing to be taken notice of in treating of this coast, that you may know this [bank] by the great quantities of fowls upon the bank-namely, shearwaters, willocks, noddies, gulls, penguins, &c, without making any exceptions; which is a mistake, for I have seen all these fowls a hundred leagues off this bank, the penguins excepted." [This peculiarity of Alca impennis is constantly mentioned by writers of the last century; witness Macaulay in a paper we have already quoted, Edwards, and Pennant.] is true that all these fowls are seen there in great quantities, but none are so much to be minded as the penguins, for these never go without the bank, as others do, for they are always on it or within it, several of them together; sometimes more, sometimes less, but never less than two together; they are large fowls, about the bigness of a goose, a coal-black head and back, with a white belly, and a milk white spot under one of their eyes, which nature has ordered to be under the right eye-an extraordinary mark. For my part, I never saw any with such a spot under their left eye. These birds never fly, for their wings are very short and most like the fins of fish, having nothing upon them but a sort of down and short feathers."

It is worthy of remark that Sir Richard ascribes the extermination of the Newfoundland "Penguin" to "the ruthless trade in its eggs and skin."*

We imagine it was from this quarter that the matchless series of ten eggs, recognized a few years ago, by Mr. A. Newton, in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, must have come. All that is known of them is that they were found, a short time prior to their recognition, by the late curator, Mr. Stewart, in a box bearing the words, "Penguins' eggs-Dr. Dick." When or how they came into the possession of the establishment there is no record. The fact, however, of the

Singular testimony to the truth of the extracts above given respecting the former annual massacres of this bird in the Newfoundland seas has been afforded. In 1841, a young Norwegian naturalist, Peter Stuvitz by name, was commissioned by his Government to inquire into the state of the cod-fisheries in that part of the world. with the view of obtaining information that might be beneficial to the same important branch of industry carried on off the coast of Norway. In the course of his investigations he heard frequent mention made by those he questioned of the former existence in immense multitudes of a bird which they termed a "Penguin," and in his report he alluded to this fact. The authorities at home were puzzled by the statement, believing that Penguins were only limited to the southern hemisphere, and expressed themselves to that effect. Stuvitz feeling his credit for the assertion at stake, made a point of visiting the Funk Islands, a small cluster of rocks lying off the entrance of Bonavista Bay, and there found, as he had been led to expect he should find, the remains of rude stone enclosures-'pounds,' as the fishermen called them-into which the hapless victims had of old time been driven by their persecutors, and heaps of the so-called "Penguins"" bones. Some of the latter he sent to Christiania, where they were speedily recognized as belonging to Alca impennis, and a solution of the mystery was thus arrived at. In 1863, a Yankee speculator obtained from the Colonial Government leave to deport the soil from these rocks, which he sent to Boston to be used as manure for agricultural purposes, and we read (P. Z. S., 1863, p. 437) that this has now been effectually done. In the process of removing the half-frozen mould, not only many bones of the species were disinterred, but at some depth beneath the surface, were several natural mummies of the bird, preserved, partly by the antiseptic property of the peat, and partly by the icy sub-soil. Two of these mumnies were fortunately obtained by the Bishop of Newfoundland, who had been made aware by a gentleman in this country of the interest

name "Penguin" being applied to them is sufficient to suggest their transatlantic origin, for on this side of the water the term never seems to have been used to designate the Alca impennis. Perhaps some of our readers may be able to throw light on the subject by informing us who this Dr. Dick could have been, and at what period he flourished. We cannot refrain in this place from expressing our regret that the authorities of the Royal College, have lately thought fit to disperse this unrivalled collection of specimens without having previously had models or photographs taken of them.

such specimens possessed, and they have been transmitted to England. The first which arrived formed the subject of Prof. Owen's memoir, the title of which we quote at the head of this article; the second, mounted as a skeleton, is now deposited in the national collection, and except an example in the Osteological gallery of the Jardin des Plantes, is the only one to be scen in any public Museum in Europe.

We have no space to enter into details respecting the bony structure of this bird. Our readers will find it admirably described in Prof. Owen's paper, and it is only when that distinguished osteologist comes to take a comparative view of the skeletons of Alca impennis and its real or reputed allies, that we feel called upon to protest against the necessity (as it has seemed to the author) for his showing at length that the Alcide have no intimate connection at all with the Spheniscida. Such a notion, if we are not mistaken, has for some years been given up by all ornithologists, except a few who are wedded to obsolete ideas of classification, and whose opinions will certainly gain no new supporters. It seems to us, indeed, that the resemblance between the Auks and the true Penguins is merely one of analogy, just such as obtains between the Swallows and the Swifts, the two groups having little in common except certain habits, and their structure, both internal and external, being as widely dif ferent. Nevertheless, it is, we acknowledge, extremely satisfactory to find this view of the case supported by an authority so high as that of Prof. Owen. We must also complain that the plates which illustrate this valuable memoir, are extremely meagre and inartistic, if we may use the term to mean that the art displayed fails to give an accurate idea of the originals. They make us long for the time when Mr. Ford's services will be again at the disposal of osteologists, or for a worthy rival of that unsurpassed delineator of bones to spring up. An outline conveying such a mistaken impression as that of fig. 3, in Plate 52, is worse than no figure at all, and we trust the draughtsman may never again have the opportunity of marring the deservedly great reputation which the plates in the Transactions' of the Zoological Society have ever enjoyed. Further, without being considered captious, we hope we may be allowed to express our inability to comprehend the principle on which the various subjects pourtrayed have been selected. We cannot imagine (and Prof. Owen's letterpress conveys to us no friendly hint on this point) why the osteology of so very abnormal an Aleine form as Uria grylle should

alone have been chosen to illustrate that of Alca impennis. Moreover considering that the most remarkable feature of the latter is its want of the power of flight, we surely might have expected to find detailed figures of the wing-extremities, for a knowledge of which we are left to the general and confused view of the entire skeleton, represented in an attitude that could never have been assumed by the bird when alive.

And now as to the possibility of the bird's present existence. We have already stated our opinion that the Geirfugladrángr off the coast of Iceland, may still shelter the descendants of part of the old stock from the Geirfuglaskér, and if we are not misinformed there are rumours, which are more than vague, of the Gare-fowl having been seen in those seas since 1844, when the last two known with certainty to have been killed met their death on Eldey. There is also, the supposed Irish apparition of the bird in 1845, in which Mr. Thompson of Belfast certainly had much confidence, and another recorded observation in 1852 on the banks of Newfoundland, (Tbis, 1861, p. 397,) by Col. Drummond-Hay, assuredly not an inexperienced and imaginative, but a practical and veteran ornithologist, besides a more definite report that a dead specimen was picked up the following year in Trinity Bay. This evidence would point to a locus for the species (independently of the presumptive Icelandic colony) existing in more western waters, and to such a spot we are also led by a remark of Audubon's :

"When I was in Labrador, many of the fishermen assured me that the Penguin,' as they name this bird, builds on a low rocky island to the south-east of Newfoundland, where they destroy great numbers of the young for bait; but as this intelligence came to me when the season was too far advanced, I had no opportunity of ascertaining its accuracy. In Newfoundland, however, I received similar information from several individuals." (Orn. Biogr. vol. iv. p. 316.)

Audubon, we admit, is a very untrustworthy authority, but we are assured by a friend who has lately visited Newfoundland, that the belief still exists as in 1833, when Audubon was there, and there can be little doubt that it refers to the Virgin Rocks, which lie near the edge of, and about midway on, the north-west side of the Great Bank. These rocks are carefully shunned by all the transatlantic-plying steamers, which usually make Cape Race for the express purpose, if we are not misinformed, of avoiding them. But it would be easy to test the truth of the story, and we hope before