The remains of the Great Auk in the shell-heaps of Maine, were in sufficient numbers to show that it must have been common, since seven specimens of the humerus alone were found, besides fragments of the cranium, jaws, and sternum. The specimens of humerus differed remarkably in condition from the same bone of other birds found with them, in not being mutilated; for of the seven specimens, four were whole, and the fifth had lost but one end, while of the humeri of the other kinds, scarce one was whole enough to enable one to identify the species. They seem not to have been attractive to the dogs. They are characterized by their much flattened shape, thick walls, narrow cavity, and the absence of an opening for the entrance of air. Well-preserved specimens of the coracoid bone were also found entire. The catalogue we have given of the animals found in the shell-heaps shows that the elements of variety in food certainly existed, especially if we add to these the maize, beans, squashes, and various kinds of roots Indians are known to have used. From the testimony of eyewitnesses, soon after the settlement of the country, it appears that while sometimes the Indian contented himself with maize roasted, or with this and beans made into a pottage, he often, when the necessary materials were at hand, made what might well be called a hodge-podge. Gookin gives a full account of the manner in which this was concocted. In a word, it consisted of a mixture of fish and flesh of all sorts. “Shad, eels, alewives,” “venison, beaver, bear’s flesh, moose, otters, raccoons, or any kind that they take in hunting,” are cut into pieces, bones and all, and stewed together. “Also they mix with said pottage several sorts of roots, as Jerusalem artichokes, and ground nuts, and other roots, and pompions, and squashes, and also several sorts of nuts or masts, as oak-acorns, chestnuts, walnuts. These, husked and dried and powdered, they thicken their pottage therewith.”[13] Father Rasles[14] expresses his disgust at their style of cooking and eating, and Wood evidently had a poor stomach for “their unoat-mealed broth, made thick with fishes, fowles, and beasts, boyled all together, some remaining raw, the rest converted by overmuch seething to a loathed mash, not half so good as Irish boniclapper.”[15] When visiting the English, if offered food, Wood informs us they ate but little, “but at home they will eat till their bellies stand forth ready to split with fullness.”[15]