All the duck- kind waddle; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails: these are the compedes of Linnaeus.
Now the p'int is to find out where them great auks lay.
If you find 'em they've got to be laid; and if they're laid there's got to be hen great auks somewhere.
I've offered to take you in because you've got a farm, and because I think you're a good man, and would know how to take care of auks when they was hatched.
All the duck kind waddle; divers andauks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails.
Others brought auks and murres; but the Judge still led the van.
But Auks are not men, good or bad,--they are dogs.
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.
They returned to Northumberland Island, and obtained an abundance of auks and eiders.
Flocks of auks were flying to and fro making a confused noise, and as Nansen listened, a sound suddenly reached his ear, so like the barking of a dog that he started.
In the morning of 22nd June, they pushed forward through a snowstorm for Northumberland Island, where a number of auks were secured.
Little auks were numerous, more bear-tracks were seen, and on the 22nd June they were fortunate enough to kill a seal.
One of the genuine great auks"--his voice fell to a whisper--one of the genuine great auks was made by me.
My dear fellow, half the great auks in the world are about as genuine as the handkerchief of Saint Veronica, as the Holy Coat of Treves.
Like the auks and puffins, the fulmars and shearwaters gather in extraordinary numbers on rocky ocean islets or cliffs of the coast to breed.
The loons, grebes, andauks are aquatic birds, living in both ocean and fresh waters.
Along the inaccessible ledges of the cliffs the auks and gulls, in crowded ranks, screamed and quarrelled over their untidy nests, or filled the air with wings as they flocked out over the gray-green, tranquil sea.
In dense ranks, sitting erect like auks or penguins, the seriously grotesque little birds sentinelled their homes, maintaining a business-like quiet in strange contrast to the ear-splitting volubility of their neighbors.
Meanwhile, on the neighboring cliff-face, had just occurred one of those incidents which were forever stirring up excitement among the colonies of the auks and the saddle-backs.
The auks had a corner of the cliff-face, where along every ledge they sat straight up in prim, close array like so many dwarf penguins, each couple occupied with its precious solitary egg.
There have been no great auks since about the middle of the nineteenth century.
When the little auks fly high against the sunlit sky, they appear like the leaves of a forest when the early frost has touched them and the first gale of autumn carries them away, circling, drifting, eddying through the air.
Millions of auks swarm from their moss-ensconced grottos; an oppressive clamor beats the air.
Inside this was lined with the breasts of baby auks and made downy with fibrous moss.
Now and then it was drowned in the raucous, deafening shriek of auks which swarmed from nearby cliffs and soared in clouds over the shore.
But if you hear of any great auks being found, kindly throw a table-cloth over their heads and notify the authorities at the new Zoological Gardens in Bronx Park, New York.
I had constructed a cage made of osiers, in which my auks were to squat until they arrived at Bronx Park.
The day before I was to set sail with my auks in a cat-boat bound for Port-of-Waves, Halyard trundled up to me in his chair and announced his intention of going with me.
The Auks are thoroughly aquatic, and not adapted in any way for a terrestrial existence.
Of all the Auks the present species, the Alca arctica of Linnaeus, and the Fratercula arctica of modern ornithologists, is not only the best known, but the most readily distinguished.
The Auks are exclusively confined to the north temperate and polar regions of the Northern Hemisphere: and by far the greater number of species inhabit the Northern Pacific.
Although the Auks are a specialised group, systematists pretty generally agree in associating them more or less closely with the Divers, the Grebes, the Gulls, and the Limicolae.
The prevailing colours of the Auks are black and white; none of them are showy birds; but some species are remarkable for their eccentric nuptial plumes, and for the brilliancy of colour of the bill.
Auks are web-footed birds, with no hind toe, with the legs placed far back, and the bill subject to great variation in size, and in some species presenting considerable change in appearance according to season.
The Divers are allied to the Auks on the one hand, to the Grebes on the other, although systematists are not yet agreed upon the degree of their relationship.
Adult Auks moult in September; the difference in the colour of the plumage peculiar to the pairing season, apparently being entirely due to a change in the hue quite irrespective of a moult.
The young of the Auks are hatched covered with down, assuming their first plumage in a few weeks.
As Professor Newton justly asks,[4] What becomes of the millions of Guillemots and other Auks that breed in northern latitudes?
Where the uncounted millions of Little Auks winter, that are known to breed in the Arctic regions, washed by the Atlantic, is still an unsolved problem.
Voyagers in the Arctic regions have met with flocks of Little Auks at most times of the year, often far from land, and occasionally crowding upon the masses of floating ice.
Whether the vernal change in colour is effected without moulting, as in the Auks and some of the Limicolae, appears not to have yet been ascertained.
We shall have more to say about these Auks in the following chapter.
The Daws are great robbers of eggs, and as soon as the Auks or Kittiwakes chance to leave them unprotected the foraging birds beat along the cliffs and pounce upon them, carrying them off transfixed on their bill.
But with the approach of spring a great change comes over the scene, and Gulls and Auks begin to assemble once more upon the famous cliffs.
When almost in despair there came seal after seal, and scores of arctic dovekies, or little auks in winter plumage.
The Angekok came with food, as usual, and at the same time there was a new visitor, a widow with a load of frozen birds--the little auks killed the summer before and stored for winter consumption.
Little auks we also saw, and some Ross's gulls, and a couple of terns.
They now found plenty of little auks up in the clefts of the mountains, and had no longer to depend on our stone-hard frozen bear-meat.
As we stood up there at a height of 500 feet, and could look far out over the sea, the auks flew in swarms backward and forward over our heads, and every now and then we would knock over one or two as they passed.
With the fowling our luck was better, and so early as June 7th we shot so many black guillemots, gulls, fulmars, and little auks that we partook on that day of our first meal of fresh meat during the year.
Two auks were lying close to the bow, and the thought of having auk for supper was too tempting; we were in want of food now.
To this we added a dozen auks, so our larder was now well furnished with good food; and if we needed more the water was full of auks and other food, so there was no dearth.
Johansen saw ten flocks of little auksflying up the sound this morning.
It was strange to be using paddles again and to see the water swarming with birds--auks and little auks and kittiwakes all round.
Our supply of meat was exhausted but for some auks we had shot, and we had not many pieces of blubber left.
We saw some little auks again yesterday; they came from the south, probably from land.
Little auks fly backward and forward in numbers, and they sit and chatter and show themselves just outside the tent door; it is quite a pleasure to see them, but a pity they are so small that they are not worth a shot.
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.
All the duck-kind waddle; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails: these are the compedes of Linnaeus.
The reason is plain, their wings are placed too forward out of the true centre of gravity, as the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward.
Great Auks were once numbered literally by millions in the North Atlantic.
For years fishermen going to the Banks in early summer depended on Auks for their meat supply.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "auks" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
