Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-03-06
RELICS OF THE GREAT AUX.
Bones of the Extinct Bird Found in
ireland.

Slowly but surely a number of
creatures are disappearing from the
fauna of the world, and the process
las become more rapid during the last
loo years. Among these lost or MORT
3und 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.
Some bones of the great aux were
'ound in kitchen hidden in the
north of Ireland. The phrase is in
directly an epitaph: Killed and eaten
oy man" was the end of this bird.
1 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 happens,
hese refuse heaps are particularly
large and abundant on some parts of
the Danish coast.
Practically they are small mounds.
orimeyal man, when he lived upon
he sea coast. made full use of the
God which he found ready to hand.
70 be fisherman requires some skill
but to gather mussels from the rocks
may be done by the lowest savage.
30 the first oyster was an expert
aent of such remote antiquity that
re know not by what manner of men
t was made.
Perhaps they had not even got so
ar as to chip fiints into shape. AT
ny rate, in all probability, their
andicraft was very primitive; their
otions of dress rudimentary.
In Denmark, on the eastern coast.
caps of shells. of which the contents
ave been eaten, are by no means rare
Sir John Lubbock describes, in his
Prehistoric Times" one of the largest
1t Meilgard, in northeast Jutland, as a
reat fiattish mound, about 10 feet
hiek in the middle, composed almost
ntirely of shells.
These usually belong to four spe-
;ies-the oyster, the cookie, the mus
Il and the periwinkle; the first being
he commonest at that particular
place. All, il will be noticed, are
till 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
.oubt, was formed close to a settle
nent, other odds and ends are found,
hough much more rarely, such aj
zones of various beasts and birds,
hipped fiints. and other stone nipple
.nents, and fragments of very coarse
pottery.
These relics belong to the Neolithic
age-that is, to a time when men
ere sufficiently advanced to have ac-
uired 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
coasts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland
though they are usually smaller in size
than those of Denmark In them
more than once, both there and in
Great Britain, the bones of the great
aux have been found. Time has
brought about its revenges. In those
Jays the bird was, no doubt, valued,
but simply because it was good to eat
and there was plenty of it. A hun
dred years ago sailors took exactly the
same view as man in the Stone age
Now it is difficult to imagine whaI
price a specimen in the flesh would
| command. for in April. 1895, bid Of
$3.50 was refused for skin, and al
the same time an egg sold for $780,
st. Louis Globe Democrat