ALCA IMPENNIS. a 
[§ 4834. One—Eldey, 1841? From Mr. Calvert, September, 
1860. 
QO. W. tabb. xvi. & L. 
Being at the British Museum on the 18th of August, 1860, I was told by 
Dr. Gray that a dealer of the name of Calvert had been to him a week before 
about a Great Auk’s ege, which he had for sale, and that this Mr. Calvert, 
whose name was quite new to me, though Dr. Gray said he was well known, 
was to be heard of opposite to the Museum in Great Russell Street, at a shop 
with the name cf Sowerby over the door. Going thither I was tctd that 
Mr. Calvert was not in, but that I should find him at a shop in the Strand, 
to which the “ Sowerby ” business was in the course of transfer. I according'y 
went after him. He, however, was not there; but I found him at a house a few 
doors off. He told me he had advertised the ege in ‘The Atheneum’ news- 
paper of the preceding week (which I subsequently found to be true, 
of. ‘ Atheneum,’ No. 1711, p. 178, col. 1, 11 Aug. 1860), and had in consequence 
several applications for it. After some conversation, he returned with me to 
the new “ Sowerby” shop, whick I then perceived, to my surprise, was in the 
house which had fomerly been the office of the Wenham Lake Ice Company, 
of which the late Mr. J. D. Salmon had been manager, for the front had been 
completely altered, and the house renumbered (167 instead of 164.4). Presently 
Mr. Calvert produced the egg, which bore a paper label, and he shewed me 
00? 
several other eggs, bearing labels in the same handwriting, which he said he 
had himself bought openly at the recent sale of the Natural History part of — 
the Museum of the United Service Institution. But this eg¢. though he 
thought it had come from the same collection, he said he had bought from 
someone else about a fortnight before. I told him that I had learned from 
Mr. Leadbeater that there was no such thing in the collection, but he replied 
that the sale was so badly managed that whole boxes, full of odds and ends, 
were sold without examination, and this agreed also with Mr. Leadbeater’s 
account. It ended in my coming to terms with Mr. Calvert: I was to have 
the egg conditionally on his informing me whence he obtained it, and he was to 
keep it for me till my retura from the Continent, whither I was intending to 
proceed that night—I paying a deposit upon it. On the 4th of September 
I called by appointment to redeem the egg, and, on my paying the price agreed 
upon, it was handed over to me by Mr. Calvert, who informed me that he 
had it from one Westall, of Porchester or Portland Terrace, Bayswater—he 
could not recollect which. I complained that this was not according to our 
agreement, for that he had promised to give me the person’s address, which he 
had plenty of opportunity to ascertain, had he been in doubt about it. I lost 
no time, however, in writing to each of the places he named, but received no 
reply, though the fact of my l-tters not being returned to me by the Post Office 
shewed me that they had been delivered to someone answering to the desig- 
nation. Subsequently L wrote t» Captain Burgess, the Secretary of the United 
Service Institution, to obtain the address of Captain (or Admiral, as he had 
become) Vidal, whose name was on the label attachel to the ege, to whom 
I also applied ; but that officer having taken up bis abode in Canada, it was 
not tll the following summer, and then only througu the kine. interyention of 
