Along the Labrador coast / by Charles Wendell Townsend.
- Townsend, Charles Wendell, 1859-1934.
- Date:
- [1907], ©1907
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Along the Labrador coast / by Charles Wendell Townsend. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![duck, we have but few records for Labrador. Audubon, in 1833, saw none of them in Labra¬ dor, although he was shown what he believed to be their nests. The great auk, one of whose headquarters was at Funk Island, on the near-by coast of Newfoundland, became extinct about 1853. It undoubtedly disported itself many a time and oft along the Labrador coast. Cartwright thus quaintly and circumstantially describes the capture of one of these birds: “We were about four leagues from Groais Island, at sun¬ set [Monday, August 15, 1771], when we saw a snow [sailing vessel] standing in for Croque. During a calm in the afternoon, Shuglawina [an Eskimo] went off in his Kyack, in pursuit of a penguin;1 he presently came within a proper distance of the bird, and .stuck his dart into it; but, as the weapon did not enter a mortal part, the penguin swam and dived so well that he would have lost both the bird 1 The great auk was formerly called a penguin, the name being probably used in this connection before it was applied to the entirely different family of birds that now bear this name and are confined to the southern seas.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31365796_0264.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)