ALCA IMPENNIS. 79 
purchaser on the wrong scent, a label had been removed from some egy out of 
the United Service Museum and affixed to the present specimen, Whether the 
substitution was effected with the knowledge or connivance of the executor, 
there is no evidence to shew, nor can I say whether he may not have had a 
pertect right to part with this or any other specimen before handing over the 
collection to the Linnean Society. He certainly attempted to make a bargain 
with the Society for it, and I suppose felt justified in doing so. Mr. Calver 
became possessed of Mr. Salmon’s Evg-Catalozu2, which he subsequently 
sold to Mr. Mdward Bidwell, when it was found that the leaf containing the 
particulars of the specimen of the Great Auk had been removed! The muti- 
lated volume was transferred by Mr. Bidwell to the Linnean Society in 1891. 
Fortunately, however, that fact does not interfere with the history of this 
egg, for in 1858 Mr. Salmon had p!aced papers in Mr. Wolley’s hands which 
shew that it was bought by Mr. Salmon in April 1842 of Mr. Robert Dunn, 
then living at Huil, being one of two, which, with as many skins of the 
bird, and the information that they had all been obtained im Iceland the year 
before, he had quite lately received, and though the evidence as to whom he 
had them from is not complete, it is nearly so. They doubtle-s came to him 
from Hamburg, but not from Herr Brandt of thit place. Now Mr. Wolley’s 
investigations in Iceland in 1858 made it pretty clear that for some reason or 
other, which was not at first apparent, the people at Kyrkjuvogr did not visit 
Eldey in 1841, while that year accords with the date assigned by Stephan 
Sveinsson, formerly of Merkines but latterly of Kalmanstjirn, to his voyage 
thither, when two birds and, he said, one egg were obtained, all of which were 
sold to a factor at Keflavik, Carl Ferdinand Thaae, from whom, we ascertained 
by written evidence, three skins, a body in spirit, and three blown eggs of 
the Garefowl were bought, in August 1841, by Herr 8. Jacobsen, a merchant, 
who added that, so far as he could remember, he sent them to Herr Jamrach, 
or perhaps Herr Selning, in Hamburg—from one or the other of whom—either 
directly er indirectly—Mr. Dunn must have had the pair of skins and the two 
eggs he received in 1842. [t is to be remarked that Stephan, who I ought to 
say was a careful and excellent witness, could only remember that a single egz 
was taken on this expedition ; it is therefore impossible to identify that specimen 
with the present, hut we may be sure it was one of the three bought by Jacobsen 
in 1841, the other two having perhaps been obtained from the Kyrkjuvogr 
people, while it is quite certain that in 1858 Mr. Wolley and I must have 
talked with one or more of those who took part in the expedition which got it 
(ef. Ibis, 1864, p. 390). 
On the 15th of April, 1892, Mr. Harting wrote to me that he had had a 
visit from Mr, Calvert, who, in the course of the conversation that ensued, 
declared that the egx which he seld to me in 18¢0 was found by him with 
other property which had belonged to Sir Joseph Banks, and been left to 
Mr. Robert Brown, in a house in Dean Street, Soho, where if was shewn to 
Mr. Champley'. That it had been obtained by Sir Joseph in Scotland while on 
his way to Iceland, that it “was a Scotch ege and therefore the most valuable 
of all the eggs of the bird now existing.” Mr. Calvert could not say what 
' (Cf. page 374, note 1.—LEp. | 
