Frederic A. Lucas

Leaving St. John's on the morning of July 21, we sailed northward toward Cape Bonavista, a headland that still bears its original appellation, following almost exactly the track pursued by Cartier's vessels more than three centuries ago. Daybreak on the morning of the 22d found us in sight of Funk Island, but the wind was so light that not until noon were we near enough for a boat to be lowered and a start made for the shore.

The best landing is at a spot termed ‘The Bench,’ lying a hundred yards or so to the west of the northeastern or Escape Point, and toward this portion of the island, where from time immemorial man had landed to despoil the feathered inhabitants, we directed our course.

A large portion of the southern and most extensive swell of rock is thickly covered with vegetation, this, the former breeding ground of the Great Auk¹, being mapped out in vivid green by the plants nourished by the decomposed bodies and slowly decomposing bones of the long extinct bird. It would seem that the Auk inhabited every accessible foot of ground, the inability of the bird to fly restricting it of necessity to such portions of the island as could be reached after a landing had been effected on the northerly or southerly slope.