372 ALCA IMPENNIS. 
no satisfactory solution of the affair will be arrived at, in consequence 
of the length of time which has elapsed.” 
(Apparently Mr. Wilmot did not write to Mr. Angustus Mason, but in 
forwarding the letter, from which the foregoing extract is given, to my brother 
Edward (who in my absence abroad was then looking after Mr. Wolley’s 
correspondence), suggested that he or Mr. Wolley, when he returned, should 
call upon that gentleman. Some time elapsed before such a visit was paid, as 
the following memorandum in the ‘ Fgg-book’ shews :—] 
On or a day or two before the 4th March, 1858, I called on 
Mr. Augustus Mason at no. 15 Furnival’s Inn. He was evidently 
very busy, but very obligingly attended to my enquiries. He 
distinctly remembered this large long egg, but could not tell me 
exactly whence it came. He was at school at Hale Green (gu. King 
Edward’s School ?) and had an indistinct recollection of a kind lady 
coming in a carriage, with whom he thought the eggs were connected. 
Thinks he must have got it through the Amphletts of Clent, of 
whom one was at school with him, or through the Downings of 
Stourbridge about 1838 or 1837.—31st March, 1858. 
(Thus ends all that can be said of the story! of this egg, for a few days 
after Mr. Wol’ey left for Iceland, and, so far as I know, did not on his return 
renew or earry further the investigation. Getting at the approximate year in 
which the first owner who can be traced received it, 1837 or 1838, is a fact not 
without significance, for it points to its having most likely been one of those 
obtained on Eldey subsequent to 1831, and sent from Iceland to Hamburg 
(Ibis, 1861, pp. 589-392), and so to some dealer in this country, by whom 
it was inscr bed with its English and scientific name and its price. It 
will be seen that given, as would seem, to Mr. Augustus Mason by a lady, 
whese name is forgotten, it passed from him to his brother Alfred, who in 
his turn gave it, with other sea-birds’ eggs, to Mr. Thomas E. Davies, who soon 
after presented it to Mr. Alfred Dudley, Mr. Dudley handing it over to 
Mr, William Bree, and he to Mr. Wilmot, from whom Mr. Wolley obtained 
it by exchange. Thus for sixty-seven years it has not been in a dealer’s hands. 
It may have suffered from exposure while in the hands of school-boys, but 
for the last fifty years at least it has been well treated, and I think it has 
never deserved to be spoken of as a badly-coloured specimen, though to the 
true oologist, who is not a mere collector, that makes no difference. | 
B.—Plaster cast of the above, painted in fae-simile by 
Mr. John Hancock, 1858. 
* [Long as the story told above may be, it is much abbreviated from the original 
account which occupies many pages of the ‘Kge-book.’ In curtailing it I have been 
careful to omit no essential fact.—EpD. | 
