336 BRITISH BIRDS. 



EARLY NESTING OF COMMON SNIPE IN WILTSHIRE. 



The Snii^e {GalUnago coelestis) began their spring call and to 

 *' drum " at Downton on February 16th, 1912 — at least, that 

 was the first time I heard them. I have noted the call, but 

 never, I think, the " drumming " earlier in the year. On 

 March 15th mj man reported to me that he had flushed a 

 Snipe off three eggs, and on April 2nd two young ones were 

 hatched. This seems to be a very early date. 



F. G. Penrose. 

 [Dr. Penrose's date is early, but not unprecedented. In 

 Mr. Abel Chapman's Bird-Life of the Borders, 2nd ed., p. 51, 

 he states that he has known of a nest (presumably with eggs) 

 as early as March 19th, and of young Snipe on the wing by 

 the end of April. This is the more remarkable, as unlike 

 Dr. Penrose's record, it comes form a northern county. In 

 Dorset Mr. A. G. Cowie recorded a nest with four eggs on March 

 31st, 1911 [Field, May 6th, 1911).— F. C. R. Jourdain.] 



SALE OF TWO EGGS OF THE GREAT AUK. 



On April 17th, 1912, Mr. J. C. Stevens sold at 38, King Street, 

 Co vent Garden, two eggs of the Great Auk {Alca impennis 

 Linn.), both of them the prox3erty of Lady Greville Smyth, 

 of Ashton Court, Somerset. 



The first specimen offered (Lot A) was one of the two eggs 

 purchased at an auction in Kent, and exhibited by me at the 

 meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club on April 18th of 

 that year, and whose history-, so far as I could trace it, was 

 given in the Ibis for 1894, pp. 422-3. It was the second of the 

 two eggs sold on A^^ril the 24th, 1894, and was purchased by 

 Mr. Henry Munt for £183 15s. On June 20th, 1900, it was 

 again put up for sale at these rooms, and purchased by Mr. 

 James Gardner for the late Sir Greville Smyth, Bart., the price 

 paid being £189. On this its third appearance it was purchased 

 for £157 10s. by Messrs. Rowland Ward, Limited. 



I much regret that in some of the accounts of this auction 

 this egg has been confused with the other specimen sold on 

 April 24th, 1894, which was bought by Mr. Herbert Massey, 

 of Didsbury, for £273, in whose collection it still remains — 

 an error which I fear may give great trouble to future his- 

 torians of the remains of this extinct bird. 



The second egg (Lot B) was exhibited by me at the 

 meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club on March 13th, 

 1912. Very little of its history is kno^vn. Many years 

 ago Sir Greville Smyth purchased a box of seabirds' eggs 

 from Mann, a Natural Historv dealer at Clifton, and on 



