low rocks fifty years before, at which time, undoubtedly, it was very

rare.

With regard to Iceland, we need not go so fully into details as we have hitherto done, for the researches into the Gare-fowl's history carried on in that island by Wolley, have been very recently laid before English readers in one of the papers quoted at the head of this article. But it will be well to point out some of the discrepancies between the statements therein made, and those contained in M. Preyer's treatise, for as this gentleman was in Iceland since Wolley's visit, it might perhaps be supposed otherwise that the information he furnishes is founded on better authority, as it is of later date. The reverse is the case. M. Preyer seems to have had his time fully occupied with other matters during his stay in Iceland, while Wolley's voyage was undertaken with the sole purpose of ascertaining the fate of this species, and of hunting up traditions respecting it; so, that while the former was apparently content with obtaining such information as he could from persons in Reykjavík, who had never visited its haunts, the latter was living for two months at the miserable fishing-village whence all the later Gare-fowling expeditions had started, pertinaciously and laboriously examining, cross-examining, and re-examining every survivor who had taken part in them. It is also the fact that M. Preyer's principal informant was the same merchant who gave Wolley a statement containing some " details which are certainly inaccurate." Thus then not the slightest credence should be given to the assertion that Karlsklippe was formerly an abiding place of the Gare-fowl. It is a little stack of rock, nearly perpendicular on every side, situated hardly more than a stone's throw from Cape Reykjanes, and were it not that the shopkeepers of Reykjavík are as imperfectly acquainted with the minute topography of their coasts as the citizens of London are with that of the Nore, it could hardly be thought possible for any man in his senses to ascribe such an abode to the bird. M. Preyer also shows but little knowledge of the remarkable skerries which run out from Reykjanes. The rock known as Kerling, or more properly Kelling, is part of the mainland, and not an island at all. Karl, as we have already said, is only just separated from the land, and is never counted by sea-faring Icelanders as one of the Fowlskerries; while it is Geirfugladrángr and not Eldeyjardrángr (a little insignificant islet, over which the waves break) which lies the furthest to seaward. In addition to these manifest inaccuracies, we have also

very great misgivings as to the existence of M. Preyer's "Geirfuglaskér IV."-off the Breidamerkursandr-which is not laid down upon any chart of Iceland that we have seen, and we are strengthened in our suspicion by Professor Steenstrup's suggestion (pp. 115, 116), which has been overlooked by M. Preyer, that the statement of Olafsen -who alone mentions it-originated in a mistaken notion as to the true position of the skerry off Breiddalsvík, the “ Geirfuglaskér III.” of M. Preyer. This last locality, about the existence of which Professor Steenstrup, when he wrote could get no confirmation, was circumnavigated in 1858 by a young Icelander, whom Wolley despatched for that purpose.

66

The sum of the ascertained particulars of the Gare-fowl in Iceland is this.-Off the coasts of that island there were three skerries, each known by the name of Geirfuglaskér,' on all of which we may presume that it formerly bred. The first of these lying to the South-East, was probably rendered desolate many years ago, no tradition of its having been occupied by the bird now existing among the natives of the opposite shore. From the second, one of the Vestmanneyjar, the Gare-fowl has apparently been long driven. Though traditions of the bird lasted until a generation ago, it may be inferred with justice, even about the year 1800 to have become very rare there. The last and best known Gare-fowl-skerry, lying off Reykjanes was on clear evidence exceedingly productive of these birds for some part of the last century. In 1732, expeditions to this islet, which had been discontinued for twenty-five years, were resumed, and kept up for several seasons, till from some cause or other they again fell into disuse about 1760. In 1813, the crew of a Færoese vessel, becalmed near the skerry, made a descent upon it, and slaughtered a large number of Gare-fowls. At the end of June, 1821, Faber, the well known Faunist of Iceland, set out for the rock with some companions, one of whom, Count F. C. Raben, a Dane, landed upon it, but whether the birds had already completed their season's work or what, it is certain that no examples of Alca impennis were seen. Yet this very same year two birds were shot on the shore of the mainland (as others had often been before) not very far off, so that the breed was still existing on this station. In the spring of 1830, a submarine eruption took place off Reykjanes, during which the skerry completely sank under water, and, immediately after, a colony of Gare-fowls was discovered on another rock lying nearer the mainland, and known as Eldey. In the course of the next four

teen years, their numbers annually dwindling, probably not less than sixty of these birds were killed on the newly selected locality, and it is from this source that nearly all the specimens of skins and eggs of the species now exhibited in various collections were derived.* The very last captured (two in number) were taken alive, at the beginning of June, 1844. They were sent to the Royal Museum, at Copenhagen, and preparations of their bodies may be seen preserved in spirit in that city.

Of other localities in the island at which the bird has casually occurred, we may mention Látrabjarg, where, in 1814, seven were killed, and according to M. Preyer, about the time of the eruption in the sea off Reykjanes, of which we have spoken, some twenty were killed on Grimsey, an island on the north of Iceland, which is just cut by the Arctic Circle. Further confirmation of this story would be very desirable, as Mr. Proctor, a most trust-worthy authority, who was weather-bound for several weeks on that wretched spot, in 1837, when there would, of course, have seen many eyewitnesses of such a fact still living, seems never to have heard of it. It is far, however, from being improbable that the birds which formerly dwelt upon the now submerged Reykjanes Geirfuglasker, would on its destruction betake themselves to other quarters, and it is not likely they all went to Eldey. Some venturesome individuals in seeking for a home may have wandered to a place so distant as Grimsey, but it is clearly more probable that the bulk of them would resort to the Geirfugladrángr—about the same distance as Eldey is from their sunken rock-and there, if any where in the northern seas, we believe their successors may still be leading a peaceful existence, for the dangerous surf which breaks upon that lone islet, coupled with its distance from the mainland, has hitherto prevented any Icelander from setting foot upon it. Reports have more than once reached Europe of the discovery of some new haunt of the Garefowl one such is nearly the sole original remark appended by Professor Von Baer to his paper, but hitherto none have been true. That the islet we have named will be reached at last there can be no doubt, and then-we shall see what we shall see.

Greenland is the next quarter to which we must invite our

*With but very few exceptions they were sent by the Icelandic merchants, who instigated the fowling expeditions, either to Copenhagen or to Hamburg, and thence distributed in the ordinary course of trade.

i.

reader's attention, and here, though their hopes may often have led them to think otherwise, we can assure them they will find no land of promise. Since the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the Danish colonies on the east coast of Greenland are supposed to have been shut off from the mother-country, by a remarkable change in the configuration of the polar ice (Scoresby, Arctic Regions, i. pp. 262, 263), that part of the world has been seldom visited, but on every occasion save one-the exceptional year, when Scoresby made his remarkable survey of the portion extending northward from lat. 69° N.—this coast has been found blockaded by ice, so that even now, between lat. 65° N. and the southern limits of Scoresby's exploration, it remains on our charts a complete blank. M. Preyer has disinterred, from the collection of records published in 1838, and known as 'Grönlands Historiske Mindesmærker' (vol. pp. 123-134), the interesting fact that somewhere about the year 1574, an Icelander, hight Látra Clemens, visited certain islands then called Gunnbjörnsskjærene, and since identified with Danell's or Graah's Islands, laying in lat. 65° 20′ N., whereon he found so many Gare-fowls, that he loaded one of his boats with them. This is the only information, we believe, on record, that the bird ever occurred on the east coast of Greenland. On the west coast it has certainly never been known otherwise than as an occasional straggler. Brünnich, in 1764, makes no mention of its being found in Greenland; and Fabricius, in 1780, while giving us its Eskimaux name 'Isarokitsok' (little wings), states that it is "raro ad insulas extremas visa, et quidem tempore brumali," adding "veteres rarissimi." During the present century, one, which is now in the University Museum, at Copenhagen, is said to have been killed on Diskö, in 1821, but it is possible that it may have been captured some years earlier, at Fiskernæs, and, says Professor Reinhardt (Ibis, 1861, p. 15), "the accounts of other instances, in which the bird is said to have been obtained in Greenland, are hardly to be confided in."

But one more locality for Alca impennis remains to be mentioned. It is, however, one of the most important for our consideration; not only because we have numerous notices of it in the very words of the ancient mariners who visited it, but also because we can gather from these notices a very good idea of what was probably the state of things as regards the Gare-fowl in parts of our own and neighbouring countries in the pre-historic ages. Professor Steenstrup has the merit of being the first naturalist who has collated these early

and interesting accounts of the wonderful abundance of the Penguin' (as this bird seems always to have been called on the western side of the Atlantic) in the sea about Newfoundland. We have only room.here to cite a few of the most important of these notices. Sebastian Cabot, who is usually considered to have been the first discoverer of North America, sighted land, which he called Primavista,' on S. John's day, 1497. This land, it seems, was part of Newfoundland, but we find no mention of the particular object of our inquiries for the next forty years. Then as we learn from the account given by Hakluyt (vol. iii. p. 168) of "The Voyage of M. Hore and diuers other gentlemen, to Newfoundland, and Cape Briton, in the yeere 1536," it is stated that :-

"From the time of their setting out from Grauesend, they were very long at sea, to witte, aboue two moneths, and neuer touched any land vntill they came to part of the West Indies about Cape Briton, shaping their course thence Northeastwardes, vntil they came to the Island of Penguin, which is very full of rockes and stones, whereon they went and found it full of great foules white and gray, as big as geese, and they saw infinite numbers of their egges. They draue a great number of the foules into their boates vpon their sayles, and tooke up many of their egges, the foules they flead and their skinnes were very like hony combes full of holes being flead off: they dressed and eate them and found them to be very good and nourishing meat."

About another forty years, and the same authority (vol. iii. pp. 172, 173) furnishes us with "A letter written to M. Richard Hakluyt of the middle Temple, containing a report of the true state and commodities of Newfoundland, by M. Anthonie Parkhurst Gentleman," dated "From Bristow, the 13th of Nouember, 1578," in which is this passage :

"There are Sea Guls, Murres, Duckes, wild Geese, and many other kind of birdes store, too long to write, especially at one Island named Penguin, where wee may driue them on a planke into our ship as many as shall lade her. These birds are also called Penguins, and cannot flie, there is more meate in one of these then in a goose: the Frenchmen that fish neere the grand baie, doe bring small store of flesh with them, but victuall themselues alwayes with these birdes."

Again, from Hakluyt (vol. iii. p. 191) we have in "A report of the voyage and successe thereof, attempted in the yeere of our Lord