TEN GREAT AUKS' EGGS 45 



honesty of one of its late owners was a subject of trouble 

 to Newton, as is seen from an interesting footnote 

 attached to the description of the egg in the " Ootheca 

 WoUeyana," p. 376 :— 



It would be absurd of me to ignore the fact that 

 persons there are, even among my friends, who have 

 been inclined to think that I was guilty of some sharp 

 practice in possessing myself of this egg. I trust that 

 the plain statement of facts fully given above will remove 

 any misconception on that score. Both before and since 

 the transaction, eggs of the Gare-fowl have turned up in 

 a manner the most unexpected. While I was engaged 

 with Mr. Calvert, Mr. Moore, of the Liverpool Museum, 

 entered the shop and told me that only a short time before 

 he had discovered a beautiful egg of Aha impennis in 

 the Derby Collection which he, though he had been 

 Curator of it for more than ten years, had never before 

 seen. In or about the very same year two were found 

 by Dr. Lepierre in the Museum at Lausanne, where they 

 had lain, since 1846 at least, unsuspected ; and in 1861 

 I myself found in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons no fewer than ten, which must have been 

 there for fifty years or more without their existence having 

 been recognised. There is therefore nothing at all 

 extraordinary in the supposition that one might have 

 been overlooked in the Museum of the United Service 

 Institution, and it was only the facts that the alleged 

 donor's name was affixed to it, and that he many months 

 after denied having ever made such a gift, which proved 

 the story to be untrue, while subsequently the disappear- 

 ance of Mr. Salmon's specimen from his cabinet indicated 

 the source whence the present specimen was derived. 



Rather more than a year later Newton made the 

 greatest discovery of Great Auks' eggs that ever fell to 

 the lot of a naturalist. 



Only fancy a discovery I made the other day ; it 

 quite took away my breath ! Going to Surgeons' Hall 



