EDITORIAL GLEANINGS. 79 



regretted when too late. A much more efficient remedy would be to 

 clear the bush and thus destroy the natural environment of the 

 insect." — ' The African World,' January 21st, 1911. 



i\.T a recent meeting of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' 

 Society, Mr. J. H. Gurney read a paper on the Great Auk's egg recently 

 presented to the Norwich Castle Museum by Mr. James Eeeve. Mr. 

 Gurney said the history of the Great Auk's egg, which was presented 

 last year to the Castle Museum of Norwich by Mr. James Eeeve, is, as 

 far as it is known, as follows : — Mr. Eeeve bought it from Mr. J. H. 

 Walter, whose father obtained it about the year 1850 from Dr. Pitman, 

 at which time the Great Auk was commonly, though erroneously, 

 supposed to be still an existing species. These particulars are given 

 by Mr. S. Grieve in his book on the Great Auk. Mr. Grieve was 

 informed by the late Professor Newton that this egg was one of 

 those which came from Herr J. E. Brandt, the dealer at Hamburg, 

 through whose hands so many of these rarities are known to have 

 passed. In 1856 John Wolley was told by Brandt that he had 

 transmitted no fewer than fifteen Great Auk's eggs to England, 

 besides others which he sold on the Continent, and that all of them 

 came to him from Iceland through an agent, whose name was 

 Siemsen. Professor Newton further told me that our egg is very 

 possibly the same one marked in Brandt's sale catalogue (No. 661), 

 at 30s. It will be observed that the marbling of this egg is very 

 rich, and having been kept from the light it is very little faded ; the 

 dark spots are very handsome, and some of the blotches of brown 

 shade off with great delicacy. Like all the other Great Auk's eggs it 

 has been blown by means of holes at the two extremities, that at the 

 large end measuring .95 by 0.6, as Mr. F. Leney informs me, being 

 filled up with a piece of egg-shell belonging to some other bird. I 

 have compared the photograph of our egg with seventeen coloured 

 plates of as many different Great Auk's eggs, and it is unquestionably 

 one of the best. It most nearly resembles, I think, one in the 

 Cambridge Museum. The stuffed Great Auk which has long 

 been the pride of our Museum was formerly the property of Mr. 

 Edward Lombe, of Melton, near Norwich, whose daughter, Mrs. 

 E. P. Clarke, presented it in 1873. Mr. Lombe obtained it from 

 Mr. Benjamin Leadbeater, but in what year is not known, but it 

 must have been prior to 1822, because J. Hunt says in his ' British 

 Birds,' of which the third volume bears 1822 as its date, that his 

 drawing was made from it. Leadbeater was a fellow of the Linnean 



