I92 Notes and News. [apHI 



interest to many people besides ornithologists. After a keen competition 

 it was purchased by Sir Vauncey Crewe, of Calke Abbey, Derbyshire 

 for 300 guineas. 



"The collecting of birds' eggs is a pastime which has obtained for some 

 centuries. John Evelyn mentions in his diary for 1681 that when at 

 Norwich he saw the collection of eggs formed by Sir Thomas Browne, 

 but we must come to the end of the eighteenth century before we can 

 trace any collector in possession of an egg of the Great Auk. Early in the 

 present century references to collections containing specimens of this egg 

 become more frequent. There are 68 recorded eggs of the Great Auk, 

 but this number includes several fragmentary remains that can only by 

 courtesy be called eggs. They may fairly be divided into four groups. 

 Ten specimens, from their perfect condition, color, and style of marking, 

 may be put into a class by themselves. Then we have 34 good specimens ; 

 12 are slightly cracked, badly blown, or varnished eggs, while the 

 remaining 14 are imperfect, varying from the eggs that had one end 

 knocked off (probably for the purpose of sucking), like that in the Angers 

 Museum, to the two fragments of the Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington. Great Britain possesses the larger number of the specimens, 

 for, of the 68, England has 45 and Scotland 3. France comes next with 

 10 eggs, followed by Germany with 3. Two are in Holland, while Den- 

 mark, Portugal, and Switzerland each possess one; there are two in the 

 United States. Again, of the 68 eggs, 29 are in 19 museums, while 31 

 private owners possess 39 eggs among them. 



"The fact of the Great Auk having formerly inhabited the British Isles 

 has been one great cause for the steady advance in value of its eggs. The 

 earliest record we have of a sale by auction is in 1853, when two fetched 

 respectively £29 and £30, which remained about their value until i860, 

 when one sold for £60. In 1880 the price had risen to £100. followed in 

 1887 by £168 and in 1888 by £225. 



"The egg which was sold yesterday, though not nearly such a good 

 specimen as that sold in 1888, has an interest to all British ornithologists 

 from having belonged to Yarrell, who purchased it in Boulogne of a 

 fisherman who had been in a whaling ship. He had two or three swan's 

 eggs and this egg on a string. Yarrell asked if they were for sale, and 

 was told that the white eggs were one franc each and the spotted one two 

 francs. Unfortunately we do not know the date of this transaction, but it 

 was anterior to 1838, for in that year the egg was figured in Hewitson's 

 'British Oology.' After Yarrell's death it was sold at Stevens's auction- 

 rooms for £21 (December, 1856), and purchased for the late Mr. Frederick 

 Bond, an old friend of Yarrell's. It remained in this gentleman's posses- 

 sion until 1875, when it was sold with his unrivalled collection of British 

 eggs to Baron Louis d'Hamonville of Chateau de Mononville, who sent 

 it to Mr. Stevens." 



Erratum. — At bottom of Plate IV, second line, for "preesing'* read 

 "preening." 



