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Updated: July 24, 2025
It was now nearly dark and quite so ere we found a harbor, not far from the fine Auk Glacier which descends into the narrow channel that separates Douglas Island from the mainland. Two of the Auks followed us to our camp after eight o'clock and inquired into our object in visiting them, that they might carry the news to their chief.
"It was apparent now why the savages had gone to this place. The little auks came in great numbers, and these birds I was told formed their principal subsistence in the summer season; indeed sometimes this is their only kind of food. There must have been millions on millions of them, swarming there like bees, and they made their nests among the stones on the hillside.
"'Would you divide the thirty-six hundred dollars even? now very much interested. "'Divide! sneered Pearson. 'Do you suppose I'd sell 'em? No, sir; I'd set 'em under a turkey, or perhaps a big hen. Then, sir, I'd go into the great auk business. I'd sell auk eggs, and make my fortune, and yourn too. "'And young ones, if we get a lot? "'No, sir! exclaimed Pearson. 'Nobody'd own no auks but me.
His words were drowned in a thunderous splashing, a roar of great, broad flippers beating the sea, and I saw the gigantic forms of my two great auks, followed by their chicks, blundering past in a shower of spray, driving headlong out into the ocean. "Oh, Lord!" I said. "I can't stand that," and, for the first time in my life, I fainted peacefully and appropriately at the feet of the pretty nurse.
Hence we can understand, bearing in mind that each organic being is trying to live wherever it can live, how it has arisen that there are upland geese with webbed feet, ground woodpeckers, diving thrushes, and petrels with the habits of auks.
And it was by no means a simple feast to which that party sat down. There were dried herrings and dried seal's flesh, and the same boiled; also boiled auks, dried salmon, dried reindeer venison, and a much-esteemed dish consisting of half raw and slightly putrid seal's flesh, called mikiak something similar in these respects to our own game.
The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and the bright air, which trembled with that liquidity of appearance that one occasionally sees in very hot weather under peculiar circumstances, was vocal with the wild music of thousands of gulls, and auks, and other sea-birds, which clustered on the neighbouring cliffs and flew overhead in clouds.
"It is easy to recognize you from your reputation," I replied, irritated at his discourtesy. "Really," he replied, with something between a sneer and a laugh, "I'm obliged for your frankness. You're after my great auks, are you not?" "Nothing else would have tempted me into this place," I replied, sincerely. "Thank Heaven for that," he said. "Sit down a moment; you've interrupted us."
They were very small, and seemed to have their nests among the rocks all along the opposite side of the island, where they were swarming on the hillside, and flying overhead in even greater flocks than the ducks. I knew they were called 'little auks, from descriptions the sailors had given me of them.
Even if they suspect an egg they do not like to examine it too closely. It's such brittle capital at the best. "You did not know that taxidermy rose to heights like that. My boy, it has risen higher. I have rivalled the hands of Nature herself. One of the genuine great auks" his voice fell to a whisper one of the genuine great auks was made by me." "No.
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