JS PBOCEEDnrGS OP THE 



March 17th, 1898. • 

 Dr. Albert C. L. Gr. GrtrKTHEH, F.E.S., President, in the Chair. 

 The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 

 Mr. Edward A. Pitzgerald was elected a Fellow of the Society, 



Mr. J. E. Harting, F.L.S., exhibited an egg of the G-reat Auk 

 (Alca impennis) which had just been discovered after having been 

 lost sight of for more than five-and-twenty years. He explained 

 that the second Lord Grarvagh, who died in 1871, was the 

 i;ossessor of three eggs of this bird, two of which he had pur- 

 chased of Mr. T. H. Potts at Stevens's Sale Rooms in May. 1853, 

 and the third he had acquired at the sale of Dr. N. Troifghton's 

 collection in April 1869. After the death of Lord Garvagh, his 

 executors disposed of the two eggs from Potts to the late 

 Mr. G. Dawson Kowley, and they are now in the possession of 

 his son. The Troughton (^g^, which was reported to have been 

 broken to pieces through the carelessness of a servant, was 

 merely cracked, and, having been put aside by the widowed 

 Lady Garvagh, was lost sight of until the present week, when, 

 on the death of her daughter who was her residuary legatee, it 

 became necessary for the executor, Mr. James Puwell, to make 

 an inventory of the per:Jonai eftects, and the egg exhibited was 

 discovered by Mr. Harting when examining what remained of 

 the collection, Lmg forgotten and stowed away in a dusty attic. 



Mr. Edward Bidwell exhibited photographs of the two eggs of 

 the Great Auk acquired from T. H. Potts, and a water-colour 

 sketch of the Troughton egg ttiade in 1861 before it became the 

 property of Lord Garvagh. This sketch placed its identity 

 beyond doubt. He remarked that tlie egg had been in Dr. 

 Troughton's colh^ction for 17 years, he having acquired it in 

 1852 from the late A. D. Baitlett, who had then recently received 

 it back from Mr. Maunde, to whom he had pieviously sold it 

 in 1842. 



Mr. Howard Saunders, F.L.S., made some remarks on the 

 N.W. limits of the area formerly inhabited by the G-reat Auk. 



Mr. Carruthers, F.R.S., recalled his acquaintance with Dr. John 

 Fleming of Edinburgh, who died in 1857, and who. in 1821 was in 

 temporary possession of a living Great Auk. This bird was 

 allowed to swim in the sea with a cord attached to one leg, and 

 through this indulgence eventually contrived to escape. Before 

 another 25 years elapsed the species had become extinct. 



The following papers w^ere read : — 



1. " On Limnocarjjus, a new genus of Fossil Plants from the 

 Tertiary deposits of Hampshire." By Clement Eeid, F.L.S. 



2. JNatural Selection the cause of Mimetic Resemblance and 

 Common Warning Colours." By Prof. E. B. Puulton, F.R.S., 

 F.L.S. 



