Auk renders it but too probable that it also must be classed
among the species that were.

The interest attached to this now extinct bird has induced some
correspondents of the _Zoologist_ to attempt an enumeration of the
specimens, both of the bird and of its eggs, (which from their great
size, as well as from their rarity, have always had a value with
collectors,) known to be preserved in cabinets. The result is that
English collections contain 14 birds and 23 eggs; those of continental
Europe, 11 birds and 20 eggs; the United States, 1 bird and 2 eggs:--the
total being 26 birds and 45 eggs.

It would appear that the rock off the south of Iceland which was the
chief breeding resort of the Great Auk, and which from that circumstance
bore the name or "Geir-fulga Sker," sank to the level of the sea during
a volcanic disturbance in or about the year 1830. "Such disappearance of
the fit and favourable breeding-places of the _Alca impennis_," observes
Professor Owen, "must form an important element in its decline towards
extinction." One might think that there would be rocks enough left for
the birds to choose a fresh station; but really we do not know what are
the elements of choice in such a case: some peculiarities exist which
make one particular rock to be selected by sea-fowl, when others
apparently to us as suitable are quite neglected; but we do not know
what they are. Possibly when Geir-fulga Sker sank, there was no other
islet fit to supply the blank. Possibly, too, the submersion took place
during the breeding season, drowning the eggs or young. If this was the
case, it would indeed be "a heavy blow and great discouragement" to the
dwindling Alcine nation.

Mr Darwin speaks of a large wolf-like Fox (_Canis antarcticus_) which at
the time of his voyage was common to both the Falkland Islands, but
absolutely confined to them. He says, "As far as I am aware, there is no
other instance in any part of the world, of so small a mass of broken
land, distant from a continent, possessing so large an aboriginal
quadruped peculiar to itself. Their numbers have rapidly decreased; they
are already banished from that half of the island which lies to the
eastward of the neck of land between St Salvador Bay and Berkeley Sound.
Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly
settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the Dodo, as
an animal which has perished from the face of the earth."[67]