^{page 668 note *} The two eggs have since been sold by auction in London; one specimen realising £100, and the other £107, 2s. Both are now in the collection of Lord Lilford.

^{page 668 note †} Montagu, “Ornithological Dictionary,” Appendix to Supplement, 1813.

^{page 668 note ‡} Fleming, “Edinburgh Philosophical Journal” vol. x. 1824.

^{page 668 note §} Thomson, “Birds of Ireland” vol. iii. p. 238.

^{page 668 note ║} Audubon, “Orn. Biog.” 1838.

^{page 668 note ¶} Newton, “Ibis,” 1861, pp. 390–392.

^{page 669 note *} Gray, “Birds of the West of Scotland, including the Outer Hebrides” 1871, pp. 441–453.

^{page 669 note †} I have the pleasure of inserting here the following letter which has been addressed to me since this paper was read. It narrates the capture of the last of the Auks in Scotland:—

“MY DEAR SIR,—I think you will be interested in knowing that when at St Kilda on the 14th of this month I found there was a man still living there who assisted at the capture of Fleming's Great Auk in 1821–22.

“Having shown a drawing of an Auk to the collected natives to see if they had any knowledge of it, they said they knew it used to be there long ago, but they had never seen it. Subsequently they told me the man was still there who caught the last Great Auk.

“I had him immediately brought to me. His name is Donald M'Queen, Sen. He is a very little man, and is also so much bent, that he does not now stand much higher than the Great Auk did. He said he was 73 years of age, but to all appearance he is considerably more.

“Donald disclaimed having been (as his neighbour reported) the person who actually caught the Auk. He informed me that he was one of four persons in a boat on the east side of the Island when they discovered the bird sitting on a low ledge of the cliff.

“Two of their number (then young men) were landed, one on either side of the bird, and at some distance from it. These two cautiously approached it, whilst he and another boy rowed the boat straight towards the Auk, which ultimately leaped down towards the sea, when one of the youths, having got directly under it, caught it in his arms. The old man with much animation went through the pantomime of grasping a supposed bird in his arms and holding it tightly to his breast.

“A partial error of the old St Kildian served to identify this Auk with Fleming's. He said the people who got it ‘tied a string to its leg and killed it.’

“When I told him they did not kill it, he said he might have forgotten what he had heard about it after it was taken away.

“Mr Mackenzie, the factor of the island, who was present, said Donald M'Queen was a trustworthy person, and that I might rely upon his telling the truth.—Yours faithfully, R. SCOT SKIRVING.”

^{page 670 note *} Hakluyt, vol. iii. pp. 172, 173.

^{page 670 note †} Hakluyt,. vol. iii. p. 191.

^{page 671 note *} History of the Voyages and Discoveries made in the North, by John Reinhold Forster, J.U.D., London, 1786, p. 290.

^{page 671 note †} New Voyage round the World, 3d ed., London, 1698.

^{page 672 note *} Vol. iii. p. 55. At page 222 of the same volume, the author writes as follows—and the quotation may serve to show that if such islands as are alluded to were at one time inhabited by Great Auks, the birds may have had other enemies to contend with besides human invaders:—“All along the face of the east coast, and within the many capacious bays which indent it, are thousands of islands of various sizes, on which innumerable multitudes of Eider Ducks and other water-fowl breed. The very smallest are not without their inhabitants, if the spray of the sea does not fly entirely over them; and the larger ones have generally deer, foxes, and hares upon them. The former will swim out to them to get clear of the wolves which infest the continent; but the two latter go out upon the ice, and are left upon them when it breaks up in the spring.”

^{page 672 note †} Pinwing is now the name in use among old residenters, at the various fishing stations on the coast of Newfoundland, who still remember the bird and its odd figure.

^{page 673 note *} “There was formerly on this coast a species of birds of the diving genus, which from their inability to fly were always observed within the space between the land and the Great Bank, and were once so abundant as to have given their name to several islands on that coast, but they are now utterly extinct. They were known by the name of Penguins.”—History of Newfoundland, by L. A. Anspach, 1819, p. 393.

^{page 673 note †} Orn. Biog., vol. iv.. 1838, p. 316.

^{page 673 note ‡} The Zoology of Ancient Europe, by Alfred Newton, M.A., Cambridge, 1862

^{page 674 note *} Excursions in and about Newfoundland during the years 1839 and 1840. London, 1842, vol. ii., pp. 115, 116.

^{page 674 note †} Newfoundland in 1842, by Sir Richard Henry Bonny castle, Knt., Lieut.-Col. in the Corps of Royal Engineers, vol. i., p. 232.

^{page 674 note ‡} In “A Short American Tramp, in the fall of 1864” (Campbell), p. 115, the author writes, “About 40 miles outside lie the Funks. Here used to be great numbers of Geyer fogel. Their skeletons are now brought to St Johns with guano.”

^{page 677 note *} Newfoundland as it was, and as it is in 1877, by the Rev. Philip Tocque, M.A., London and Toronto, 1878.

^{page 677 note †} Lieutenant Chappell, an intelligent and observant cruiser, in his “Voyage to Newfoundland in H.M.S. ‘Rosamond,’” refers to this group (1818), but makes no allusion whatever to the Penguin.

^{page 677 note ‡} A very good map has been published in the “History of Newfoundland” by the Rev. Charles Pedley (1863). The map accompanying Bonnycastle's “Newfoundland in 1842” may also be consulted with advantage.

^{page 679 note *} Ibis, vol. iii. 1861, pp. 391, 392.

^{page 679 note †} I have been kindly informed by Mr Wenley of this city, that in July of the present year he had, through the attention of Professor Steenstrup, an opportunity of seeing the remains of these two specimens in the University Museum at Copenhagen. They are simply anatomical preparations, consisting of the intestines and other internal organs—the muscles, bones, skins, and feathers not having been preserved.

^{page 681 note *} Natural History of Iceland, &c., by N. Horrebow, folio, London, 1758.