120 TEE ZOOLOGIGAL SOCIETY. 



The question of the possible existence of the great auk came 

 under discussion at the Council Meeting of March 16, 1859. A 

 letter from Mr. Wolley was read, and the Secretary authorised 

 to state in reply that the Society would expend " a sum not 

 exceeding £70 in obtaining and bringing to England a Hving 

 specimen of the great auk from Iceland, if Mr. Wolley could 

 succeed in obtaining one." 



Professor Newton, in the Ibis (October, 1861), in giving a 

 summary of Wolley 's researches in Iceland, pointed out that 

 whether the bird were already extirpated or still existing in 

 some unknown spot, extinction, if it had not already taken 

 place, must follow on its re-discovery, which if accomplished 

 should be turned to the best account. Purely in the cause of 

 knowledge he thus urged the claims of England : 



Our metropolis possesses the best-stocked vivarium in the world. An 

 artist residing among lis is unquestionably the most skilful animal 

 draughtsman of this or any other period. By common consent, the 

 greatest comparative anatomist of the day is the naturalist who super- 

 intends the nation's zoological collection. Surely no more fitting repository 

 for the very last of the Great Auks could be found than the gardens of the 

 Zoological Society of London, where, living, they would be immortalised 

 by Mr. Wolfs pencil, and, dead, be embalmed in a memoir by Professor 

 Owen's pen. 



In the last year of the decade two shoe-bill storks'^ were 

 brought home by Consul Petherick and purchased by the 

 Society. These gigantic birds were the first examples to reach 

 Europe alive; and the only survivors out of six shipped 

 at Khartoum, and out of about a score partially reared. 

 Petherick repeatedly obtained young birds from the nest, but 

 they died in a few days. Then he hatched out the eggs under 

 hens, and the young birds would persist in performing all 

 sorts of unchicken-like manoeuvres with their large beaks 

 and extended wings in a small artificial pond, supplied with 

 live fish and offal chopped into small pieces. In Petherick's 

 collection there was a young hippopotamus, which was 

 deposited in the Gardens, and afterwards sold to Barnum. 



* This species, BdUeniceps rex, was described by Gould in the Proceedings^ 

 1850, p. 1, from a skin obtained by Mansfield Parkyns on the "White Nile. There 

 is a figure by Wolf. 



