The bones of _birds_, like those of the deer, were almost without exception broken, but in quite a different manner. In the latter it was the shaft that was shattered, the ends often remaining uninjured; while in the birds the shaft was whole, and the ends not only broken off, but nowhere to be found. It is not to be supposed that they were so broken off for the extraction of the marrow, since those containing only air were treated in the same way. Steenstrup having observed the same fact in the remains from the Danish shell-heaps, suspected that they were mutilated by dogs, and accordingly by way of experiment, having kept some of these animals on short diet, gave them various bird bones to eat. He found, as he had anticipated, that they ate the ends, rejecting the shaft. He explains their choice by the greater sponginess, and easier digestibility of the former as compared with the dense middle portion of the latter. No doubt an additional inducement was found in the remains of flesh, tendon, and ligament, which would usually remain adherent to the ends, after the portions ordinarily eaten had been removed. On looking over the specimens of our collections, marks of teeth of animals were frequently noticed, some of them of such size as might be made by dogs, but others by a much smaller animal, as a cat or mink. Of the remains of birds, by far the most interesting are those of the Great Auk (_Alca impennis_), which formerly had a much wider geographical distribution than now, for having followed the glaciers in their retreat, at present it is confined to the arctic and subarctic regions. In Europe it formerly existed, as appears from the evidence of the shell-heaps, on the shores of Scotland, the Orkneys, and it has recently died out in Iceland. In the United States we have the authority of Steenstrup and Prof. Baird for its former existence as far south as Cape Cod. There can be but little doubt that the last survivors lingered till after the arrival of the Europeans. The description of the “Wobble,” by Josslyn, as far as it goes, applies to the Great Auk, “an ill-shaped bird, having no long feathers in their pinions which is the reason they cannot fly; not much unlike a penguin.”[12] There are various traditions along the sea-coast of its having been seen at a much later date. Audubon, however, in his voyage to Labrador saw none in the Straits of Belle Isle, but was told that they still bred on an island north of Newfoundland.