376 ALCA IMPENNIS. 
became of Mr. Salmon’s specimen. It is curious to note, however. that 
Mr. Calvert assured Mr. Harting that Mr. Salmon’s egg was quite a different- 
looking egg from that sold to me, being characterized by lines as well as spots, 
and that also agrees with my vown original impression, as well as with 
Mr. Hancock’s opinion. It remains to say, however, that these assertions leave 
unaltered the conclusions at which I had before arrived. 
There is one other thing of peculiar interest in regard to this evg, and that 
is the strong family-likeness which it bears to that formerly in the possession 
of the late Mr. Tuke. This struck me very forcibly when, a good many years 
aco, I first saw his specinren, and be-sme still more evident when [ had the 
opportunity of comparing the two. Not only was the character of the spots 
and markings on each precisely similar, but each possessed at the smaller end 
asemispiral depression, the effect no doubt of a sphincter muscle working upon 
the shell when in a soft and plastic condition. No one accustomed to eges 
could possibly doubt that these two eggs were the produce of one and the 
same parent. Mr. Tuke bought his egg, in May 1841, of Reid of Doncaster, 
who had it from Friedrich Schulz, then of Dresden, to whom it had been 
sent by Bradt of Hamburg—who had it, of course, of Stemsen, of Reykjavik. 
It seems pretty safe te suppose that it was taken on Eldey in 1840.) 
C .—Piaster cast of the above painted in Sae-simile by 
Mr. Hancoek, 1860-1. | 
' (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 tranaaction, egzs 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 dis- 
covered a beautiful egg of Alca 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. Depierre in the Museum at Lausaune, 
where they had laim, since 1846 at least, unsuspected [§ 4836]; and in 186] I myself 
found in the Museum of the Roval College of Surgeons of England no fewer than 
ten, which must have been there for fifty years or more without their exis- 
tence having been recognized. 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 disappearance of 
Mr, Salmon’s specimen from his cabinet indieated the source whence the present egg 
was derived. Furthermore, it is clear to me that had the Linnean Society not 
vefused the cffer of that eabinet when fir-t mede, January 1860 (thovgh in the 
eireumstauees no blame attaches to the Council), the present egg would have 
yemained in it, for there is no reason to suppose that its tien thence was 
accomplished before the following summer.—Ep.] 
