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TESTIMONY OF SOME EARLY VOYAGERS ON
THE GREAT AUK.

BY FANNIE P. HARDY.

Mr. Lucas, in his recent article on the Great Auk, asks if the
“great Apponatz” of Hakluyt may not be either a misprint or a
wrong translation oi ’•'•gi'asse Appotiatz^'' the fat Apponatz ; and
further on supposes, for the sake of a question, that the Apponatz
is the Razor-bill, as if the “Apponatz” and the “great Apponatz”
vvere two different birds. That there is no mistake involved, and
that but one bird, the Great Auk, is meant, can be shown by
comparing the certain statements of early travellers.

Unfortunately the notes from which I draw my material were
taken for quite another purpose, and contain no extracts from
Cartier, and no copy of his works is at present accessible; but
as every good library should contain at least the Tross reprints
of the ‘Bref Recit et Succinte Narration,’ the ‘Discoiirs du Voy-
age fait (en 1534)’ and the ‘Relation Originale,’ his exact
words can be very easily determined. A few of the very best
libraries in the country may possibly contain the following as
well : ‘A short and || brief narration of the two || Navigations
and Discoueries || to the Northwest partes called 1| Newe France :||
First translated out of French into Italian by that famous |1
learned man Gio : Bapt : Ramutius, and now turned || into English
by John Florio : worthy the rea \\ ding of all Venturers, Trauel-
lers II and Discouuerers’ || etc. This book, published in 1580, is
an English translation of Cartier’s work, and is in all probability
the one quoted by Hakluyt.

While these four books would decide the question o{ grande
grasse^ iiw more valuable as evidence is a quotation from
one of them made by Marc Lescarbot in 1609. This I have not
compared with Cartier, but probably, like most of the quotations
of that time, it is a paraphrase rather than a verbal reproduction.
Certainly it is much modernized in spelling. Yet that it is strik-
ingly accurate anyone may see by comparing the French as here
given with the English translation from Hakluyt, quoted in ‘The
Auk’ for April, p. 139. The great value of this extract as evi-

iSSS.]

Hardy on the Great Auk.

3S1

dence, lies in the fact that Lescarbot had travelled extensively in
this country, being as he said himself “teinoin ocnlaire d’une
partie des choses ici recitees” ; and so able from his own experi-
ence to correct any misprint in Cartier’s work ; and moreover
would not have hesitated to do this, as anyone who is acquainted
with the calm way in which these early travellers appropriated
each other’s observations will admit. The extract is as follows :

“ . . . .et approchames de trois iles, desquelles y en avoit deux
petites droites comme un mur, en sorte qu’il estoit impossible
d’y monter dessus, et entre icelles y a un petit esciieil. Ces iles
estoient plus remplis d’oiseaux que ne seroit un pre d’herbes,
lesquels faisoient lii leur nids, et en la plus grande de ces iles y
en avoit un monde de ceux que nous appellions Margaux, qui
sont blancs et plus grands qu’ Oysons, et estoient separez en un
canton, et en I’autre part y avoit des Godets ; mais sur le rivage y
avoit de ces Godets q\. grajids Apponaths semblables a ceux de
cette ile dont nons avons fait mention [probably his He des
Oyseaux, No. 3 of his chart ; this lie des Margaux is No. 46].
Nous descendimes au plus bas de la plus petite, et tuames plus
de mille Godets et Apponaths et en mimes taut que souloumes
en noz barques, et en eussions plus en moins d’une heure remplir
trente semblables barques. Ces iles furent appellees du nom de
Margaux.” (Lescarbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle France, Vol. I,
p. 331 et seq., ed. 1609; p. 333 et seq., Tross edition.)

It is extremely improbable that the same verbal error should
find its way into the three difierent versions of Cartier and also into
the four editionsof Lescarbot published duringthe latter’s lifetime.
Hence if Hakluyt, quoting a translation, said “great Apponatz,”
and Lescarbot, (pioting Cartier either directly or indirectly, said
“grands Apponaths,” the chance that Cartier ever said or meant
to say “grasse” is exceedingly small. Whatever the bird was,
we must admit that it impressed the French as being large ; and
we must remember that this is an absolute, not a relative term.

In one or two places Mr. Lucas writes “Great Apponatz,”
beginning the adjective with a capital, as if there might be a
‘Lesser Apponatz,’ in comparison with which this was large.
That this could not have been the case, may be seen from the
fact that Apponatz, or Apponath, was an Indian name, not yet
naturalized, so that any adjective attached must have been purely
descriptive, never distinctive in its use. For any other bird some-

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what resembling this, the French would have adopted the Indian
name already applied to it, instead of transferring this. But
there are other reasons why Apponath can refer to the Great Auk
only. Later, we find that the bird had French names given it,
and Apponath was retained only as a synonym. Frere Gabriel
Sagard Theodat, in his ‘Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons’
(Paris, 1633), speaks of the bird as Guillaume, Tangeux, or Ap-
ponath, stating that the latter is the Indian name for it. He
describes this bird as being ‘‘large as a goose,” “black and
white,” “with a short tail and little wings.” Unquestionably,
this is the Great Auk, and his use of the word Apponath is such
that it must have been applied to this bird only. Aside from
this, there is another reason, partly negative, but having great
weight with those best acquainted with the zoological observa-
tions of this age, why the term Apponath could not have in-
cluded the Razor-bills. There is no evidence, I think, that the
French voyagers ever noticed the difference between the Razor-
bills and the Murres ; I am not aware that any of the early
English observers made the distinction. The points most
important in scientific classification were passed by unnoticed,
differences of size, color and habit forming the basis of their dis-
tinctions. To them, birds as near alike in size, figure, habits
and general coloration, as the Murres and Razor-bills, would be
regarded as one and the same. It is almost a certainty that the
Godels (the Godetz of Cartier, Godets and Godes of Lescarbot)
which Sagard describes as similar to the Apponath but smaller,
include both the Murres and Razor-bills. Another reason for the
term Apponath not referring to the Razor-bill is that it is every-
where spoken of as being fat, “excessivement gras.” Murres
and Razor-bills, so far as my personal experience goes with
specimens killed in winter, are, contrariwise, excessively lean,
being shaped somewhat like a toy Noah’s Ark. But the Ap-
ponath, on the other hand, is invariably described as fat and
oily ; and the term Tangeux which Sagard says was the sailor’s
name for the Guillaume or Apponath, although not in any
dictionary which I have consulted, seems to be equivalent to
“lumpers,” and to imply that the birds were short and fat.
What Guillaume signifies, not even Trevoux hints at. John
Josselyn in his ‘New England’s Rarities Discovered,’ etc. (Lon-
don, 1673), describing the Wobble, which is undoubtedly the

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,^83

Great Auk, calls it “an ill shaped Fowl, having no long feathers
in their Pinions, which is the reason they cannot fly, not much
unlike a Pengwin ; they are in Spring very fat., or rather oyly,
but pull’d and garbidg’d, and laid to the fire to roast, they
yield not one drop.”

More evidence might easily be collected from the narrations
of these early travellers, but in dealing with them care has to be
exercised to see that they are not quoting some earlier traveller
without giving him the credit due him.

As to the Great Auk breeding on the New England coast, the
statement of Josselyn already quoted, that they were taken at
Black Point (which was near Portland, Maine) in the spring.,
is an indirect testimony, the stronger for being undesigned.
Again in Archer’s ‘Account of Gosnold’s Voyage to Cape
Cod’ made in the spring and summer of 1602, he mentions
“seeing petrels, coots, hagbuts, penguijis., mews, gannets, cor-
morants, gulls,” etc. These birds were seen in the months of
May and June in the region of Cape Cod ; hence it is reasonable
to suppose that the Penguin, or Great Auk, was breeding there
at that time. Again, Brereton in his ‘Account of the Voyage of
Gosnold to Virginia’ speaks of the birds of the country, among
which he mentions “eagles ; hernshaws ; cranes; bitterns ; mal-
lards ; teals ; geese ; pe 7 iguins; osprays and hawks ; crows ;
ravens ; mews ; doves ; sea-pies,” etc. Gosnold arrived in Vir-
ginia, April 36, 1607, and Brereton’s account was published the
following year, so that these “penguins” may have been seen
during the winter, though it is fully as probable that the list w'as
made soon after their arrival in the country. Throwing this out as
doubtful, at least two good references have been given to show
that the Great Auk was present on our coasts during the summer.
If they were there at that time, what could they have been there
for unless to breed ?

In his article in ‘The Auk,’ Mr. Lucas says: “As for the bones
found in shell-heaps, they are probably those of birds taken
during their migrations southward, for the Great Auk was doubt-
less formerly as common on the New England coast during the
autumn and winter months as the Razor-bill is now.” This cer-
tainly is a fair conjecture, and may be the correct one yet ; con-
sidering the references already given which show that the Great
Auk was, for a period of seventy years at least, a summer resi-

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Hardy on the Great Auh.

[October

dent, and also taking the formation of the shell-heaps into
account, it is quite as probable that these were summer speci-
mens. For, the popular opinion to the contrary, I can show the
best of reasons for believing that nineteen-twentieths of all the
clams and oysters represented by our shell-heaps were taken and
shelled during the summer months ; that the Indians, instead of
living on the spot the year round, came down the rivers in the
summer in large numbers and made a business of gathering
clams and oysters ; and that, instead of eating these on the spot,
they dried them in large quantities and carried them back up
river and into the country for winter food. If this be the cor-
rect solution of the formation of the shell-heaps, these heaps
must have accumulated rapidly during the summer, and slowly
(for undoubtedly some Indians remained there the year through)
during the rest of the year. Hence, most of the bones found in
the heaps are the kitchen refuse of those engaged in shelling
clams for winter use ; hence, also, if the bones of the Great Auk
are .found in numbers proportionate to the bones of other kinds
of animals, they are, presumably, the remains of birds taken by
summer occupants of the kitchen middings and were not fall
and winter specimens. That this is not mere theorizing the
statements of Archer and Josselyn show : for if the birds were
on the coast in summer at a date when the shell-heaps were ap-
proaching their completion, it is not illogical to suppose that
they were at least equally abundant at the same season while the
shell-heaps were growing most rapidly ; and if the shell-heaps
received nearly all their additions during the summer months, as
can be shown to be true of the Maine heaps, the majority of the
Great Auk bones found in them may be confidently set down as
the remains of birds who had bred or were breeding on the
coast. It will yet be conclusively proved that the Great Auk
was resident the year round on the coasts of New England.