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Show 1868.] MR, R. BROWN ON THE MAMMALS OF GREENLAND. 361 I may as well close these notes on supposititious or non-existent animals by some remarks on other species, which though not mammals, yet come fairly under the headings I have given to this section of m y paper. The Great Auk (Alca impennis, Linn.), once so common in Greenland, in the days of Egede, Cranz, and Fabricius, as, indeed, it was in many other parts of the northern portion of Europe and America, there can be little doubt is now quite extinct in Greenland. I made every inquiry regarding it, but could learn little or nothing about it. The natives about Disco Bay do not now even recollect it by name, though when the old Eskimo name of it (Lsarokitsoc) was mentioned they immediately repeated it, and said, " A h ! that means little wings!" Though the Royal Museum in Copenhagen has offered large rewards for a specimen, hitherto their efforts have been in vain. One of the stories I was told at Godhavn, on Disco Island, if true, would afford some hope of its yet being found:-Eight years ago (1859), on one of the little islets just outside of the harbour, in the winter time, a half-breed named Johannes Propert (a nephew, by the way, of the well-known interpreter Carl Petersen) shot a bird which he had never seen before, but which, from description, could be no other than the Great Auk. He and his companions ate it, and the dogs in his sledge got the refuse ; so that only one feather could afterwards be found. I know the man well. He is rather an intelligent fellow, and was not likely to destroy a bird of such rarity that he had never seen it before, when he knew that it would command a price from the Governor. Moreover Johannes bears the reputation of telling wonderful tales now and then. He says that he saw two, but that one escaped among the rocks. Mr. Frederick Hansen, Colonibestyrer (Governor) of Godhavn, has offered a reward for it, and is very sanguine that he will yet obtain a specimen of the Geirfugl*. Depending on the native stories of a jumping animal found in the southern part of Greenland, on grassy meadows, and called by them Piglertok (" the springer"), Fabricius thought that he recognized the Common Frog, and has accordingly entered the Rana temporaria as a member of the Greenland fauna. He, however, saw no specimens, nor is such an animal known in Greenland, where there are no species of Reptiles or Batrachians found. About the southern portion of Disco Bay, the natives use the name as a sort of slang title to the Nisa (Phoceena communis, Brookes), the Marsviin of the Danes in Greenland f, from its tumbling or springing movements while disporting itself. Jansen J gives the word in the south Greenland dialect as pisigsartul or pigd/ertut, and translates it a Grasshopper (greeshopper). * Swedish Garfogel, Norse and Icelandic Geirfugl and Goiful. It is also called in Norse Stor- Ommer. t Called in Sweden Marsvin and Tumlare, in Finnish Merisika, and in Norse Ise and Nise, from which, apparently, the Eskimo name Nisa is derived. as are not a few of the Greenland words, from their intercourse with the old Norsemen prior to the Middle Ages. I suspect Piglertok, now the vulgar term, was originally the native one. X Lib. cit. p. 59. |