Supplementary note on the great auk or garefowl (Alca impennis Linn) / by Symington Grieve.

  • Grieve, Symington.
Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplementary note on the great auk or garefowl (Alca impennis Linn) / by Symington Grieve. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1896-97-] from the remains obtained from Funk Island by the United States Grampus expedition in 1887. I have seen this skeleton. It is mentioned on p. 515 of the lieport ol the United States National Museum, Washington, 1887-88, by Mr Frederic A. Lucas, that it was presented to the New York Museum. Washington, JD.C. — My friend Mr Frederic A. Lucas, Osteologist of the Smithsonian Institution, writes me on 31st January 1897, that of the material obtained by the United States Grampus expedition about twelve skeletons in all will be built up. Of this number four have already been parted with, which have gone to Cambridge (Mass.), New York, Edinburgh, and Sydney, N.S.W., so that only eight skeletons now remain at the Smithsonian Institution. Of the eight skeletons, it is mentioned at p. 516 of the Pteport of the United States National Museum, Washington, 1887-88, by Mr Frederic A. Lucas, that “ two skeletons are retained for the reserve series of the Museum.” Detached Bones found in Ireland. Although the Great Auk as a living bird was previously recorded from the coast of Ireland, it is only within the last few years that the bones have been discovered in the sandhills of Whitepark Bay, County Antrim. The discoverer, Mr W. J. Knowles, points out that the old surfaces of the sandhills, with their shells, broken bones, and implements, are really kitchen-middens. Mr Knowles, in the ‘ Proceedings of the Eoyal Irish Academy’ (3), vol. i., No. 5, 1891, records the finding of two humeri of the Great Auk ; and again in the same ‘ Proceedings ’ (3), vol. iii., No. 4, pp. 650-663 (Dec. 1895), mentions the discovery of a number of bones in conjunction with human remains, which Mr Knowles believes to be those of the earliest Neolithic inhabitants of Ireland. Mr Knowles remarks that “ from the number of bones [of the Great Auk] which have been found it must have been a common inhabitant of the north of Ireland at the time when the people of the Stone Age occupied Whitepark Bay and other parts of the coast.” The foregoing information appeared in the ‘ Irish Naturalist ’ for May 1896, in a paper written by Mr G. E. H. Barrett VOL. III. o
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