694 Letters, Extracts, Notices, ^r. 



Sirs, — I am indebted to Mr. James Gardner, the well- 

 knoAvn taxidermist of 29 Oxford Street, London, for per- 

 mission to describe an luirccorded egg of the Great Auk, 

 which he has recently obtained. 



This e^g, which measures 4^{} x 3", is marked with lines 

 of pale grey, and at the larger end has several blotches, Avbich, 

 in consequence of having a thinner layer of shell over them, 

 show greenish grey. 



Unfortunately, some former owner of the egg has tried to 

 clean it by scraping it with a knife, and has thus destroyed 

 the surface of the egg, except where the blotches have escaped 

 the cleaning process, and there the slight remains indicate 

 that the texture was of a rough coarse grain. 



The only history I have been able to obtain is, that for 

 over 25 years the e^^, packed in a box, had been hidden 

 away in a book-case, and there is no information forthcoming 

 as to Avhen or where it was obtained by the person who 

 placed it there. 



Yours &c., 



Edward Bidwell. 



1 Trig Lane, E.G., 



August 23rd, 1900. 



Sirs, — The last number of 'The Ibis^ (ante, p. 570) con- 

 tained an account, taken from the Abstracts of the Proceedings 

 of the Geological Society for March 21st (Session 1899-1900, 

 p. 11), of the discovery by Prof. H. G. Seeley of a bird's bone 

 fi'om the Stonesfield Slate. The bone was identified as the 

 right humerus of a Carinate bird, and as resembling the cor- 

 responding bone in a Flamingo in size and in some structural 

 characters. It was shown that the bone must have belonged 

 to a bird that diverged in no way from modern types, and no 

 indication was afforded of any affinity to Archct-opteryx. 



The specimen was found by Professor Seeley amongst a 

 collection of Pterodactyl bones obtained by the late Earl of 

 Enniskillen from Stonesfield; this collection is now in the 

 British Museum. 



At the Meeting of the Geological Society, Dr. C. W. 

 Andrews, of the British Museum, pointed out the probability 



