110 



who have been led to visit the high latitudes of Iceland and other places, we 

 believe that the Gare-fowl still exists and breeds on some of the sui'f-beaten 

 Skars and Skerries, where a frightful surge almost perpetually i-ages, and 

 denies access to tlie boldest explorer. (Would that some of our rarer birds 

 could be sheltered from impending extinction by a barrier as secure, and thus 

 be saved from the destructive attacks of the mercenary ^'li-^^d^i"^!"-) 



The author of Teoi Years in Sioeden, writes : — " I do not believe this bird 

 is extinct, although not one has been seen or an egg taken for several years. 

 The value of this biixl is as well known in the North as in England." 



So highly is an example of this bird esteemed in collections, that in Wood's 

 Natural History of Birds, a list is given of all those specimens of the bird or 

 egg which are known to exist in the various museums, and public and private 

 collections, throughout Europe and America, recording the number of speci- 

 mens which each country possesses. 



Baring-Gould, in his Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas, who contributes a fund 

 of valuable information as to the probable habitat of the Gare-fowl, makes the 

 total number larger than that given by the Eev. J. G. Wood. 



For several years I could boast of having three of the eggs in my posses- 

 sion ; Di\ Meyer, the author of British Birds and their Eggs, inspected and 

 made notes of these ornithological treasiires. When, in 1853, I parted with 

 some portion of my collections, one of these rare eggs was jmrchased at public 

 auction for £30. This was commented on by some of the serials of that date 

 as an extraordinary fact. 



The egg which the drawing exhibited is intended to represent, and the 

 smallest of the three mentioned above, measures in length 4 inches 8 lines, by 

 2 inches 10|- lines in breadth ; it is white, slightly soiled in two or three places 

 with dull yellow, marked and oddly streaked, principally at the larger end, 

 with black and blackish brown. 



Some twenty years ago very excellent imitations of the Auk's egg were 

 manufactured in France ; they were intended to fill up the place of the real egg- 

 in the cabinets of oologists ; some of these specimens soon crossed the English 

 Channel, and attempts were made to pass them oif as genuine. I well 

 remember the pleasure with which a communication was received from a 

 leading naturalist and dealer, that he was at length in possession of some 

 eggs of the Great Auk ; on examining these so-called eggs, I was at once 

 struck with their weight, absence of pores, and the extraordinary fact that all 

 were alike, mai"k for mark ; on placing one of my own specimens before my 

 correspondent, he saw at once that he had been gulled, and admitted that he 

 had been cheated out of £18 for half-a-dozen specimens in plaster-of-paris ; 

 he, however, fell back on the doubtful consolation that he was not the only 

 suflferer, for, according to a police report of a charge of obtaining money under 

 false pretences, a brother naturalist had been similarly cajoled. 



