Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1897-12-02
The GREAT AUX.
bones of n Fine Specimen Recently
Found In Ireland.

Slowly but surely a number of crea-
lures are disappearing from the fauna
of the world, and the process has be-
come more rapid during the last hun
dred years. Among these lost or mort
bund species is the great aux, which is
now only known from specimens in col
lections, or from the occasional discov-
cry of its bones in circumstances which
in themselves often help to explain the
cause of its disappearance. 1t has just
been announced that some bones of the
great aux have been found in a kitchen
hidden in the north of Ireland. The
phrase is indirectly an epitaph: ''Killed
and eaten by man" was the end of this
bird. A kitchen hidden is nothing
more nor less than a primeval refuse
heap. The term is the translation of
the Scandinavian name, for, as it hap
pens, these refuse heaps are particular
ly large and abundant on some parts
of the Danish coast. Practically they
are shell mounds. Primeval man, when
he lived upon the sea coast, made full
use of the food which he found ready to
hand. To be a fisherman requires some
skill; but to gather mussels from the
rocks may be done by the lowest saw
age. So "the first oyster" was an ex-
pertinent of such a remote antiquity
that we know not by what manner
of men it was made. Perhaps they>had
not even gotten so far as to chip f1ints
into shape; at any rate, in all probable
ity their handicraft was very primi-
tive, their notions of dress rudiment-
airy. In Denmark, on the eastern coast,
heaps of shells, of which the contents
have been eaten, are by no means rare.
Sir John Lubbock describes. in his ''Pre-
historic Times" one of the largest, at
Meilgard, in northeast Jutland, as n
great hattish mount, about ten feet
thick in the middle, composed almost
entirely of shells. These usually be-
long to four species-the oyster, the
cookie, the mussel and the periwinkle,
the first being the commonest at that
particular place. All, it will be no
ticed, are still eaten, though the oyster,
from an ordinary article of food, has
become luxury. Besides these, as
might be expected in a refuse heap
which. no doubt, was formed close to
settlement, other odds and ends are
found, though much more rarely. such
as bones of various beasts and birds,
clipped 1ints or other stone imple-
nents, and fragments of very coarse
pottery. These relics belong to the
Neohthic age-that is, to a time when
men were sufficiently advanced to have
acquired the art of making weapons of
polished stone, though they were ig.
norant of the use of metals. Such
refuse heaps are met with in other
countries. more especially on the coast
of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, though
they are usually smaller in size than
those Of Denmark. In them, more than
once, the bones of the great aux have
been found. Time has brought about
It's revenges. In those days the bird
was, no doubt, valued, but simply be-
cause it was good to eat, and there was
plenty of it. A hundred years ago
sailors took exactly the same view as
man in the stone age. Now it is diff
cult to imagine what price specimen
in the flesh would command; for in
April, 1895, bid of $50 guineas was re-
fused for a skin, and at the same time
an egg sold for $50 guineas.-Detroit
Free Press.