AI.CA IMPENNIS. 379 
drawing-rcom it was found lying on aglass plate, by the Rev. S. A. Walker, in 
the spring of 1884. He recognized it, and told Mrs. Hill that if it was a 
genuine egg and not a model it was very valuable. A few days after, that 
lady and her husband going to London took the egg with them to the British 
Museum, leaving it in charge of Dr, Sharpe, who communicated with Lord 
Lilford and arranged the sale of it to him. He wrote telling me of it, and it 
reached him on the 21st of April in that year. With the assistance of the late 
Mr, Mansel-Pleydell, I endeavoured to ascertain the history of this specimen, 
subsequently goinz with my brother Edward to Pimperne, where we saw 
Mrs. Hill. But all our efforts had very little result, the facts of the case 
simply amounting to this, that the egg was, to the best of her recollection, given 
to her daughter in the autumn of 1871, by a relative, Miss Betty Stone Way 
(who died in 1879 at Kenson near Wimborne), it having been much prized by 
her brother Mr. James Henry Way (who died at the same place in 1869). 
Mrs. Rose, Mrs. Hill’s daughter, wrote to me that she was “under the 
impression” that it came to Mr. Way from a ship-captain whose name she cannot 
remember, Various conjectures have been made as to its former history, and 
Tam not sure whether some of them have not found their way into print; but 
all these I dismiss, though one cannot overlook the fact that Mr. Way lived so 
near Poole that he was likely to have known some of the captaius of ships 
frequenting that port, which used to be the chief seat in England of the trade 
with Newfoundland!, The egg bore no inscription, and I think can never have 
' {In regard to the long-established trade connexion between Poole and 
Newfoundland, I may mention that Mr, Reginald Johson, of Fogo, writing to me in 
September, 1862, said: “I have, I believe, discovered the existence of a Penguin 
skeleton in England. It is in the possession of Robt. Slade, Hsq., of Poole.” I 
made all the enquiries I could about this specimen, but did not succeed in finding 
out more about it. More than a year later, December 1863, soon alter I had received 
from the Bishop of Newfoundland the “natural mummy” of a Penguin from 
Funk Island (Proc. Zool. Soc, 1858, pp. 485-458), I learnt that a second “ mummy” 
had been sent to Mr. William Waterman, of Poole; but I was unable to learn more 
of it until on the 29th of June, 1876, that gentleman informed me that it had been 
obtained for him Ly one of the “ice-hunters” on Funk Island. “ Not being a very 
pleasant object, though be had been told it was very valuable, he put it in a box, 
and the box in his barn.”” He had had occasion to lcok for it some time before, 
possibly in consequence of one of my applications to him, for I had made many, but 
“could not find it, and fears it is lost.” His was the only firm at Poole then 
trading with Newfoundland, the Slades, formerly Slade and Cox, having given up 
the trade some two or three years before. He had often heaid Penguins spoken 
of, and knew that they were extinct; but he did not know of any specimen— 
other than his own ‘‘mummy”’—having been brought home—neither bird nor 
eggs. The “mummy ” sent to me by Bishop Field formed the subject of Professor 
Owen’s paper in the ‘ Transact*ons’ of the Zoological Society (vol. v. pp. 317-335, 
pls. li., i.). I felt bound to place it his hands, as I had obtained it by following up 
the enquiries originated by Mr. Wolley, and it had always been his intention that 
should success of the kind he hoped attend them, the Professor should have the 
describing of the results. The skeleton extracted from that specimen is now in 
the Cambridge Museum,— Ip. | 
