Birds. 245 



on the eve of Waterloo, and sent, with the officer who took it, 

 by Marshal Bliicher, to the Prince Regent, from whom it was 

 purchased by its present proprietor for the sum of three thousand 

 guineas." The carriage was bought by Mr. Hopkinson, coach 

 maker, Holborn, for <£168. 



Mr. Riddell and Mr. Molinari again appear as purchasers for 

 some of the Napoleonic relics, and Mr. Vigors bought a linen 

 towel. Lot 103, a silver helmet, taken at Waterloo, and Lot 104, a 

 trophy of French arms and colours, from Waterloo, were purchased 

 by " Walter Scott, Esq.," for £5 15s. and £3 13s. M. respectively. 



Colonel Birch's "small but very fine collection of Organised 

 Fossils, from the Blue Lias formation at Lyme and Charmouth 

 in Dorsetshire, consisting principally of bones, illustrating the 

 osteology of the Ichthio-saurus, or Proteo-saurus, etc.," was sold 

 by Bullock, "at his Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly" on Monday, 

 the L5th day of May, 1820, so that it would seem that, after the 

 dispersal of his private Museum, he still continued his business 

 as an auctioneer. Dr. Leach bought some of the lots, but 

 Lot 102, "a skeleton of the Ichthio-saurus," was, according to a 

 MS. note in Professor Newton's copy of the Catalogue, " Bo* in ; 

 wants £300 for it." A further MS. note says : " since purchased 

 for £100 for the Surgeon's Museum, London." 



We take up once more the authentic recoi'd of the bird 

 collections in the year 



1816. 



In this year the Montagu collection was purchased. It con- 

 sisted of the most complete series of British birds of the time, 

 but, as I have stated before, owing to the defective preparation 

 of the specimens, many of them have fallen to pieces. Colonel 

 Montagu was the author of the " Ornithological Dictionary," an 

 excellent work in its day, and the specimens purchased by the 

 Museum were doubtless the ones which had served for the 

 descriptions in his work. 



The Montagu collection, as it existed in 1816, when Dr. 

 Leach was the Keeper of the Zoological Department, may be 

 determined by his " Systematic Catalogue of the specimens of the 

 Indigenous Mammalia and Birds that are preserved in the British 

 Museum, with their localities and authorities "(8vo, pp. 1-42). This 

 little pamphlet was printed (no doubt iov the Trustees) by Richard 



