The Savannah morning news., 1902-04-15
BONE OF A GREAT Auk,s WING.
Important Scientific Discovery Made
in Florida.
From the New York sun

From the New York sun.
DR.. oliver P. Hay assistant curator
in the Department of Vertebrate Pal
aeontology, at the American Museum
of Natural History. has made dis
covery which will cause stir among
ornithologists. Among number of
bones and shells sent to him recently
for examination, by State Geologist
Willis $. Blatchley of Indiana, Prof
Hay found tie humerus, the upper
wing of a great &&ks wing, the bird
having been extinct since sS44.
The remarkable feature of the dis
covery Is, that the bone was dug rom
a mound at Ormond on the southern
coast of Florida. Hitherto the north
ern coast of Massachusetts was sup
posed to have been the most southerly
point ever reached by the bird.
The box in which the specimens were
sent to DR.. Hay contained a large
number of rare shells, and it was sew
eral days before the wing bone was
discovered. The fiat shape of the hui
merus was peculiar and DIR. Hay CALI
ed in Prof j. A. Allen. the orpitholo-
gists and his assistant Mr.. Chapman,
for a consultation. DR.. Allen expressed
the belief that il belonged to the aux
family and a comparison was made
comparison proved without question
that the bone was that of an aux.
DIR. Hay was elated, but instead of
informing Prof Blatchley at once, he
wrote asking for full particulars as to
the find. He received an answer which
told of recent fossil-hunting trip to
Florida, and the mound in which the
bone was found was described as be-
ing 1.100 feet long. $50 feet wide and
10 feet high. DR.. Hay said yesterday
to Sun reporter:
There are but five stuffed speci-
mems OF the great aux in this country,
one here, one at the Smithsonian In
stitution, Washington; one 81 the
Academy of Natural History In Phil
adelphia, one at Vassar College and
one at Harvard. The eggs are VAL
ued at $4,000 each and there are but
two in this country, at Washington
and Philadelphia.
1.-The great aux is of the Alca inn
pennis species, so called because II
does not fly. 1t was the king of all
bird swimmers and was known to dive
to great depths. 1t inhabited Green
land, iceland, Labrador, Newfound-
land, the west coast of Ireland, and
bones have been found in shell heaps
along the Maine and Massac husetts
coasts.
1.-The only way can explain its ex-
istence in Florida is that some OF the
birds may have migrated there during
a severe winter. When this fact be-
comes generally known we may hear
of bones being found between Massa-
chusetts and Florida, and in that
event we would be certain of their
having at one time inhabited that sec
ton of the hemisphere. The great aux
was the same to the Northern henis-
phere as the penguin is to- the South
erp. 1t measured about thirty inches
from tip of tail to beak and was three
toed. The wing was only six inches in
length. In the early part of the pres
ent century the birds were plentiful,
but they were killed by the thousand
by fishermen, who used them for food
and sold the feathers.
Prof. Cones in a work published In
1872 tells of a great aux having been
found at st. Augustine, Labrador. in
1870, which was sold in France for 5000.
No trace has been found Of this bird,
and the report is generally discredited.
This makes 1t almost certain that the
bird became extinct prior to 1874. The
aux was all marine and lived upon
fish exclusively