238 The Great Auk. [Sess. 



sale created a great deal of interest at the time, and was re- 

 ferred to by all the leading journals. ' Punch,' in its issue of 

 24th March 1888, p. 153, thus refers to this event: — 



A Golden Egg again.— Another Great Auk's egg has just turned up, been 

 put up to Aukshun, and knocked down again, without being smashed, 

 fortunately, frail a curiosity as it was to come under the hammer. Mr 

 Stevens of King Street, Covent Garden, sold a very fine egg of the Great 

 Auk for ,£225. . . . This one egg was ultimately taken to a good market, 

 and was sold for the sum mentioned. We hope it has reached its destina- 

 tion in safety. An accident might happen from mere Aukwardness. Some 

 of us will be wishing that we had a private Auk, of a sporting turn, who 

 would lay heavily occasionally. We wouldn't kill him to see how the trick 

 was done. 



On 25th March 1888 Mr E. Scot Skirviug sent me the 

 following from his pen. He says " it is a mere pun." It also 

 refers to the egg sold by Mrs Wise : — 



" Mrs Wise, you were wise to keep open your eyes 

 To the value of Alca impennis : 

 Few eggs gain by keeping, whatever their size, 

 But Alca's will keep you in pennies." 



At the exhibition of pictures at the Eoyal Academy, London, 

 in 1892, was one by Mr H. S. Marks, E.A., named "The Col- 

 lector's Treasure : The Great Auk's Egg." The picture is ad- 

 mirably drawn, but unfortunately the costumes of the two 

 gentlemen who appear in the scene would lead one to believe 

 they lived in the thirties of the present century, when eggs of 

 the Great Auk were of comparatively little value, instead of in 

 the nineties, when the eggs had become precious. Prints of 

 this picture appeared in 'Eoyal Academy Pictures,' 1892, and 

 also in the 'Illustrated London News,' 30th April 1892. 



In the 'Zoologist' for 1895, p. 285, Mr J. Steel Elliot 

 says : — 



The old grey-bearded man Lachlan M'Kinnon, mentioned by Mr Dixon 

 as having taken part in stoning to death a Great Auk on Stack-an-Armin, 

 was, I am sorry to say, dying when I left the island. An interview with 

 him would have been useless, as I was informed his memory had left him 

 for some time. The natives told me of a ledge on Soa named after the 

 bird, which it is said to have frequented in the breeding-season. 



(See also ' Trans. Edin. Field Nat. and Micro. Soc.,' vol. ii. 

 pp. 97, 98.) 



