Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/478

462 charcoal and auk-bones, the charred condition of the latter testifying to the truth of the accounts that the fat bodies of the slain birds were used as fuel to heat water for scalding their companions—a near approach to seething the kid in its mother's milk. Other cooking places, where the birds were scalded and plucked, lie scattered along the crest of the southern slope, although it is only by much digging that their existence is brought to light. An excavation made near the best-preserved pens revealed the fact that here was probably one of the last places where the great auk was taken. Scarcely two inches of turf covered the shallow soil in which lay imbedded a few fresh-looking bones of the great auk, mixed with others belonging to its relative, the murre. Evidently, the great auk was even then on the wane; its numbers were no longer sufficient to supply the demands of the feather hunters, who, like their successors, promptly supplied the deficiency with the next bird at hand.

The great auk, by the way, is not the only bird exterminated on Funk Island, for the gannet lives only in the name, Gannet Head, although it was abundant in the time of Cartier, and, according to report, still lingered thirty years ago.

Thanks to the efforts of the eggers, the numbers of all birds breeding here have greatly lessened during the last twenty years, and only the puffin, whose security lies in his burrow, seems able to hold his own.

The soil of Funk Island is in two distinct layers, the lower of which, mostly formed during the occupancy of the great auk, is from three inches to a foot in thickness. Next the bed-rock lie a few angular pebbles, of various sizes, mixed with and covered by a deposit containing innumerable fragments of egg-shells, the whole having a yellowish-gray appearance. Even were there but few bones present, the character of this stratum is in itself sufficient to indicate the immense number of auks formerly breeding here, as well as the length of time during which they made Funk Island their resort. Also, were there no testimony to the contrary, the shallowness of the soil would show the inaccuracy of those writers who state that the great auk nested in a burrow. The upper stratum of soil has been formed since the extermination of the auks, principally by the growth and decay of the vegetation, nourished by their decomposing bodies. This fine, dark colored, superficial layer, covered with thick, loose turf, formed by the matted roots of plants, also varies in thickness from three or four inches to a foot. In it are found the great majority of bones, the patches of charcoal indicating the location of the cooking-places, and, very rarely, linings of eggs in a more or less dilapidated condition.

By far the best-preserved remains occur in the older soil, where