Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/89

Rh GARE- the case in other members of the family Alcida: to which it belongs. The most striking characteristic of the Gare- fowl, however, was the comparatively abortive condition of its wings, the distal portions of which, though the bird was just about twice the linear dimensions of the Razor-bill, were almost exactly of the same size as in that species—proving, if more direct evidence were wanting, its inability to fly. The most prevalent misconception concerning the Gare- fowl is one which has been repeated so often, and in books of such generally good repute and wide dispersal, that a successful refutation seems almost hopeless. This is the notion that it was a bird possessing a very high northern range, a11d consequently to be looked for by Arctic explorers. How this error arose would take too long to tell, but the fact remains indisputable that, setting aside general asser- tions resting on no evidence worthy of attention, there is but a single record deserving any credit at all of a single example of the species having been observed within the _rct'l'c Circle, and this, according to Prof. Reinhardt, who has the best means of ascertaining the truth, is open to grave doubt.‘ It is clear that the older ornithologists let their imagination get the better of their knowedge or their judgment, and their statements have been blindly repeated by most of their successors. Another error which, if not so widely spread, is at least as serious, since Prof. Owen (Encg/cl. I)’rit., ed. 8, xvii. p. 176; Palceorztologg/, p. 400) has unhappily given it countenance, is that this bird “ has not been specially hunted down like the dodo an.d dinornis, but by degrees has become more scarce.” Now, if any reliance can be placed upon the testimony of former observers, the ﬁrst part of this statement is absolutely untrue. Of the Dodo all we know is that it ﬂourished in BI-auritius, its only abode, at the time the island was dis- covered, and that some 200 years later it had ceased to exist—the mode of its extinction being open to conjecture, and a strong suspicion existing that though indirectly due to man’s acts it was accomplished by his thoughtless agents (P/Lil. Trans., 1869, p. 354). The extinction of the 1)£nornis lies beyond the range of recorded history. Sup- posing it even to have taken place at the very latest period as yet suggeste'.l——and there is much to be urged in favour of such a supposition—little but 0I‘1.Ll tradition remains to tell us how its extirpation was effected. That it existed after New Zealand was inhabited by man is indeed certain, and there is nothing extraordinary in the proved fact that the early settlers (of whatever race they were) killed and ate Moas. But evidence that the whole population of those birds was done to death by man, however likely it may seem, is wholly wanting. The contrary is the case with the G-are-fowl. In Iceland there is the testimony of a score of witnesses_, taken down from their lips by one of the most careful naturalists who ever lived, the late John Wolley, that the latest survivors of the species were caught and killed by expeditions expressly organized with the view of supplying the demands of caterers to the various museums of Europe. In like 111anner the fact is incontestable that its breeding-stations in the western part of the Atlantic were for three centuries regularly visited and devastated with the combined objects of furnishing food or bait to the ﬁshermen from very early days, and its ﬁnal extinction, according to Sir Richard Bonnycastle (lVeu_'foumllancl in 1842, i. p. 232) was owing to “the ruthless trade in its eggs and skin.” No doubt that one of the chief stations of this species in Icelandic waters disappeared, as has been before said (BIRDS, loc. cit.), through volcanic action— “ A land, of old upheaven from the abyss By ﬁre, to sink into the abyss again”— 1 The specimen is in the Museum of Copenhagen; the doubt lies as to the locality where it was obtained, whether at Disco, which is within, or at the Fiskemas, which is without, the Arctic Circle. FOWL -79 and that the destruction of the old Geirfuglaskér drove some at least of the birds which frequented it to a rock nearer the mainland, where they were exposed to danger from which they had in their former abode been compara- tively free ; yet on this rock (Eldey°= ﬁre-island) they were “specially hunted down” whenever opportunity offered,until the stock there was wholly cxtirpated in 1844, and whether any remain elsewhere must be deemed most doubtful. A third misapprehension is that entertained by Mr Gould who, in his Birds of Great Brita-in, says that “formerly this bird was plentiful in all the northern parts of the British Islands, particularly the Orkneys and the Hebrides. At the commencement of the present century, however, its fate appears to have been sealed; for though it doubtless existed, and probably bred, up to the year 1830, its numbers annually diminished until they became so few that the species could not hold its own.” Now of the Orkneys, we know that Low, who died in 1795, says in his posthumously-published‘ Fauna Orcaclevzsis that he could not ﬁnd it was ever seen there; and on Bullock’s visit in 1812 he was told, says Montagu (Orn. Diet. A pp.), that one male only had made its appearance for a long time. This bird he saw and unsuccessfully hunted, but it was killed soon after his departure, while its mate had been killed just before his arrival, and none have been seen there since. As to the Hebrides, St Kilda is the only locality recorded for it, and the last example known to have been obtained there, or in its neighbourhood, was that given to Fleming (Edinb. Phil. Jam-21., X. p. 96) in 1821 or 1822, having been some time before captured by Mr Maclellan of Glass. That the Gare-fowl was not plentiful in either group of islands is sufﬁciently obvious, as also is the impos- sibility of its continuing to breed “ up to the year 1830.” But mistakes like these are not conﬁned to British authors. As on the death of an ancient hero myths gathered round his memory as quickly as clouds round the setting sun, so have stories, probable as well as impossible, accumulated over the true history of this species, and it behoves the conscientious naturalist to exercise more than common caution in sifting the truth from the large mass of error. Americans have asserted that the specimen which belonged to Audubon (now at Vassar College) was obtained by him on the banks of Newfoundland, though there is 1Iacgillivray's distinct statement (1}rz't. l-Iirds, v. p. 359) that Audubon procured it in London. The account given by Degland (Om. Em-op., ii. p. 529) in 1849, and repeated in the last edition of his work by M. Gerbe, of its extinction in Orkney, is so manifestly absurd that it deserves to be quoted in full :——“ Il se trouvait en assez grand nombre il y a une quinzaine d’années aux Orcades ; mais le ministre presbytérien dans le Mainland, en offrant une forte prime aux personnes qui lui apportaient cet oiseau, a été cause de sa destruction sur ces iles.” The same author claims the species as a visitor to the shores of France on the testimony of Hardy (Am;-uaire ivormaml, 1841, p. 298), which he grievously misquotes both in his own work and in another place (Nazmzcmma, 1855, p. 423), thereby misleading an anonymous English writer (Nat. H ist. I3ev., 1865, p. 475) and numerous German readers. Since the former notice of this species in the general article BIRDS (at supra), the only important contribution to our knowledge of it that has appeared is a paper by Mr John Milne, published in T he Field newspaper, and since reprinted for private circulation. This gentleman visited Funk Island, one of the former resorts of the Gare-fowl, or “Penguin,” as it was there called, in the Newfoundland seas, a place where bones had before been obtained by Stuvitz, and natural mummies so lately as 1863 and 1864. Landing on this rock at the risk of his life, he brought off a rich cargo of its remains, belonging to no fewer than ﬁfty