Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/473

Rh to the subject. It was the good fortune of the writer, during the summer of 1887, to visit the favorite resort of the great auk.

This spot, lying thirty-two miles to the north and east of Cape Freels, Newfoundland, is Funk Island, whose granite sides and outlying reefs form a constant menace to the few vessels navigating the adjacent waters. Separated from it by intervals of six hundred and twelve hundred yards are two small, low islets, washed completely over in storms, the three constituting the group known as the Funks, although popularly the plural is often used when speaking of the larger island only. The locality is of considerable interest to the St. John's sealers, from the fact that the vast herds of seals that drift down from the north in the early spring are usually encountered and slain somewhere in this vicinity.

But to the ornithologist the chief interest of Funk Island will ever lie in its having been the headquarters of the great auk, the number of birds frequenting other localities being insignificant when compared with the feathered legions who dwelt on the granite cliffs of this lonely spot. Should this be doubted, it must be remembered that the work of extermination required more than two centuries of slaughter, while to-day the soil is whitened by the fragments of myriads of egg-shells.

The writer had long been desirous of procuring some bones of the great auk for the United States National Museum; and when in the spring of 1887 it was found that the work of the United States Fish Commission would take the schooner Grampus along the eastern coast of Newfoundland, it was decided that she should visit Funk Island, and he was detailed to accompany her. Daybreak on the morning of July 22d found the vessel about ten miles distant from the Funks, toward which she was slowly progressing before a light but fortunately favorable wind. But for the distance intervening between the schooner and her destination the weather would have been pronounced simply perfect, for fine weather is by no means common in this latitude, and yet it is essential for landing on this rocky outpost. The morning wore slowly on, and not until noon was the Grampus near enough for a boat to be lowered and a start made for the shore.

The plan agreed upon was to take ashore in the first boat all things needful for a stay of several days, so that, a landing once effected, we would not be forced to quit the island by threatening weather, but could remain and prosecute our work, while the schooner sought safer quarters than near the breakers, which in rough weather are found in the vicinity of Funk Island. It was, therefore, with a well-loaded dory that we left the Grampus a mile