Symington Grieve - The Great Auk - 1885

Title

The Great Auk, or Garefowl: Its History, Archeology, and Remains

Author

Symington Grieve

Year

1885

Publisher

Thomas C. Jack, Edinburgh

Description

The great auk (Pinguinus impennis, formerly Alca impennis), a flightless bird of the North Atlantic, was driven to extinction by the mid-1850s as a result of sustained overhunting. Valued for meat and fish-bait, and especially for its down - widely used in feather beds - attempts in the early nineteenth century to curb its destruction proved ineffective; the last known breeding pair was killed in 1844.

In this 1885 study, Scottish naturalist Symington Grieve assembles an extensive body of material relating to the “history, archaeology, and remains” of the species. The volume surveys the bird’s former range, habits, nomenclature, and documents all known surviving specimens - skins, skeletons, bones, and eggs. Illustrated with drawings and lithographs of remains, it concludes with an appendix of historical and contemporary documents drawn from across Europe.

x, 141pp., 58pp. appendix, with one folding map.

Condition

Rubbing to the cover. Foxing, creasing and markings to pages. At pp. 65–72 one string of the gathering is slightly loose.