Letters, Extracts from Correspondence, Notices, i^c. 371 



strators being such as the Society could not accept, some 

 delay took place in the transfer. About a year and a half 

 afterwards, the wrapper of this Magazine contained a notice 

 that on the 23rd April, 1861, and following day, " a superb 

 and unique collection of British Birds' Eggs, belonging to 

 the Museum of a late celebrated physician,^' would be sold at 

 Mr. Stevens's rooms. When the catalogue of this sale came 

 out, it was pretty evident that its compiler had had access 

 to Mr. Salmon's papers. The catalogue purported to include 

 very many eggs (some of them most valuable specimens) which 

 were well known by several of our supporters to have been in 

 Mr. Salmon's possession a short time only before his decease. 

 These were, however, interspersed with others, the histories of 

 which, as there given, were so manifestly untrue as to render 

 it plain that the writer was guilty of crass ignorance as an 

 ornithologist, even if they did not suggest the possibility of 

 something worse. We made some inquiry of our friend Mr. S. 

 Stevens respecting this sale. He frankly told us that all he 

 could say was, that the person who communicated with him 

 respecting it professed to be acting under the directions of 

 the executors of the late Dr. Martin Barry, F.R.S., who was 

 certainly entitled to the designation of a "late celebrated phy- 

 sician." On further inquiry in another quarter, we were told 

 that the presence in the sale of so many eggs known to have 

 once been Mr. Salmon's property was to be accounted for by 

 the fact that Dr. Barry had received them in exchange from 

 that gentleman ! Now considering that some of these, unmis- 

 takeably described as they were in the catalogue, were specimens 

 so valuable that it was impossible to suppose Mr. Salmon would 

 ever have willingly parted with them, we thought the story a 

 lame one, but with it were fain to be content. Some time after, 

 hearing that Mr. Salmon's collection had been actually handed 

 over to the Linnean Society, and was to be seen in their rooms 

 at Burlington House, we went thither, and found that all its 

 choicest rai-ities had been removed, and their places supplied 

 by most palpable forgeries or worthless substitutes. It then 

 became plain that an extensive fraud had been perpetrated by 

 some one. But no remedy could be suggested, and we did not 



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