The bird is a Great Auk. It was a large flightless auk of the North Atlantic Ocean.
It formerly lived in great colonies off the Labrador coast in Canada. Unfortunately for it trappers caught them for their meat. In a very gradual response – although quickly in evolutionary terms – some of the Great Auks moved their breeding grounds east to Iceland and Scotland.
Unfortunately by this time, these birds were now quite rare and museums snapped them up. Great Auks in Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles and the west coast of Scotland found themselves collected for taxidermy and their eggs went to collectors. A report of a bird caught in the St. Kilda islands states that it was killed by the islanders thinking the large bird was some sort of evil and borne of witchcraft.
The last Great Auks were killed in 1844 in islets off of Iceland. The Great Auk is a symbol of extinction.
The 1844 date makes the bird’s demise contemporary with the beginnings of rugby. Had a rugby ball from Rugby School made it to the isolated breeding grounds of the northern and western islands of Scotland, it would have been possible for the ball and bird to be seen together.
A Great Auk is thus the perfect symbol for these defunct rugby clubs.
Old Dead Rugby Clubs 