Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1898-05-20
(To be c~ontinucd.)
THE GREAT AUX.
Bones of a Fine Specimen Recently
Found In ireland.

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
collections, Or from the occasional dis
covery of its bones in circumstances
Which in themselves often help to eX-
plain the cause of it's disappearance.
1t has just been announced that solne
bones of the great aux have been found
In a kitchen hidden in the north of Ire
land. The phrase is indirectly all cpl
taph: "Killed and eaten by man. was
the end of this bird. A kitchen mid
den is nothing more nor less than a
primeval refuse-heap. The term is the
translation of the Scandinavian name,
for, rs 1t happens, these refuse-heans
are particularly large and abundant ON
some parts of the Danish coast. Prac-
tically, they are shell-mounds. Prime
val man, when he lived upon the sea
coast, made full use of the food which
he found ready to hand. To be n fish
erman requires some skill; but to gath
or mussels from the rocks may be done
by the lowest savage. So ''the first
OYSTER was an experiment of such 4
remote antiquity that we know not by
what manner of men it was made. Per-
haps they had not even gotten so far rs
to chip flints into shape; at any rate,
in all probability their handicraft was
very primitive, their notions of dress
rudimentary. In Denmark, on the
eastern coast, heaps of shells, of which
the contents have been eaten, are by
no mean are. Sir John Lubbock de-
scribes, in his prehistoric Times"
II of the largest, ut Meilgard, in
northeast Jutland, as n great 1attish
mound, about ten feet thick in the mid
die, composed almost entirely of shells.
These usually belong to four species
the oyster. the cookie, the mussel aud
the periwinkle, the first being the COM
monest Mt that particular place. All, 1t
will be noticed, + still eaten, though
the oyster, from an ordinary article OF
food. has become a luxury. Besides
these, as might be expected in a refuse
heap which, no doubt, was formed
close to a settlement, other odds and
ends are found. though much more
rarely, such as bones Of various beasts
and birds, Clipped fiints or other stone
implements, and fragments of a very
coarse pottery. These relics belong to
the Neolithic %age-that is, to n time
when mel We're sufficiently advanced
to have acquired the art of making
weapons of polished stone, though they
We're ignorant of the use of metals.
Such refuse heaps are mel with in otll-
err countries. more especially on the
coasts 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 its revenges. In those days the
bird was, no doubt, valued, but sim
ply because it vas 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
1t is difficult to imagine what price a
specimen in the flesh would command;
for in April. 1895, a bid Of $50 guineas
was refused for n skin, and at the same
time an egg sold for $50 guineas