Ii6 Recent Notes on the Great Aiik. [Sess. 



glad if he would let me have it for an exchange. He accompanied me 

 back to the museum. After looking at the egg, the sub-director told 

 him I had offered five napoleons or an equivalent in exchange for it. 

 He said they would rather prefer the money. I therefore borrowed 

 the amount from my Russian friend, and, after packing the egg care- 

 fully, left the museum, they seeming sorry that they had no more 

 specimens, and considered they had got a good bargain. We arrived 

 at Milan at seven in the evening. I had a box made for the egg the 

 next day. The egg is perfect, and thickly pencilled at the thick end. 

 No. 4.— This fine egg was obtained as follows : Passing through Paris 

 for Italy the same year (1861), I called on Parzudaki, the French 

 naturalist. He told me the Abbe la Motte had an egg of Aha im- 

 pennis, but was then in Algiers. I told him to buy it for me, and to 

 write in three mouths to me at the Poste Restante, Rotterdam. On 

 arriving there I found his letter, saying the son was at Abbeville, and 

 asking instructions. I at once wrote telling him to buy the egg. This 

 he did for ,£24. I have four letters referring to this purchase. No 

 history, excepting a statement that it was obtained forty years pre- 

 viously from French whalers. Nos. 5 and 6. — I bought these eggs in 

 London from Ward, the naturalist in Vere Street, in 1864. Pre- 

 viously I had received a letter from Fairmaire, Paris, saying he had 

 two eggs. Unfortunately his letter was sent to Scarborough while I 

 was in London. There was consequently some delay in my knowing 

 he had the two eggs for sale. As Fairmaire did not hear from me, he 

 supposed I either did not care to have the eggs or that I had not got 

 his letter. AVhen I wrote he said he had j^arted with them. By 

 chance the same week I called at Ward's, and he showed me one egg, 

 for which I gave him £25, and asked him if he had any more. He 

 then showed me another egg, for which I paid him £30. I then asked 

 him if he had any more, as I would take twenty. He smiled. He 

 would not say how he got them ; bi;t I afterwards found out they were 

 the same as offered to me by Fairmaire. I called on Ward many 

 times after, and he always regretted having parted with these eggs. 

 They are perfect, and well marked. I don't know their previous his- 

 tory. Nos. 7, 8, and 9. — These eggs were bought in 1864 from Pro- 

 fessor Flower, then of the Roj^al College of Surgeons, London. They 

 were part of the collection of ten eggs of Alca impennis in the Hunt- 

 erian Collection. I had difficulty in getting them, as at the time they 

 would not take monej\ I got over the difficulty by purchasing a col- 

 lection of anatomical specimens for £45, which the museum was 

 anxioiis to possess, and then exchanged it for the four eggs, all very 

 fine specimens. If I had pressed at that time, I could have got the 

 other four eggs afterwards sold at Stevens's salerooms in July 1865. 



France. 



Chateau de Manonville, Meurthe. — The three eggs in the collection of 

 the Count de Barace, Angers, have been purchased by Baron Louis 

 d'Hamonville, Chateau de Manonville, par Noviant-aux-Pres, Meurthe, 

 and are now in his possession. These, added to Yarrell's egg already 



