and I leave the A.O.U. to prove that if it can. In the life history of
this bird, a great tragedy was enacted in 1800 by sailors, on Funk
Island, north of Newfoundland, where men were landed by a ship, and
spent several months slaughtering great auks and trying out their fat
for oil. In this process, the bodies of thousands of auks were burned as
fuel, in working up the remains of tens of thousands of others.

On Funk Island, a favorite breeding-place, the great auk was
exterminated in 1840, and in Iceland in 1844. Many natives ate this bird
with relish, and being easily captured, either on land or sea, the
commercialism of its day soon obliterated the species. The last living
specimen was seen in 1852, and the last dead one was picked up in
Trinity Bay, Ireland, in 1853. There are about 80 mounted and unmounted
skins in existence, four skeletons, and quite a number of eggs. An egg
is worth about $1200 and a good mounted skin at least double that sum.

THE LABRADOR DUCK,--_Camptorhynchus labradoricus_, (Gmel.).--This
handsome sea-duck, of a species related to the eider ducks of arctic
waters, became totally extinct about 1875, before the scientific world
even knew that its existence was threatened. With this species, the
exact and final cause of its extinction is to this day unknown. It is
not at all probable, however, that its unfortunate blotting out from our
bird fauna was due to natural causes, and when the truth becomes known,
it is very probable that the hand of man will be revealed.

The Labrador duck bred in Labrador, and once frequented our Atlantic
coast as far south as Chesapeake Bay; but it is said that it never was
very numerous, at least during the twenty-five years preceding its
disappearance. About thirty-five skins and mounted museum specimens are
all that remain to prove its former existence, and I think there is not