49 [Vol. xi. 



birds and considerable weakness in the size and structure of 

 the legs. 



Mr. E. Bidwell exhibited, on behalf of Mr. Henry- 

 Stevens, an egg of the Great Auk (Plautus impennis), and 

 gave the following history of the specimen : — "This egg was 

 in 1855 in the collection of M. le Baron Henri de Veze, who 

 had purchased it of Parzudaki of Paris. In 1858 it was sold, 

 through the agency of Fairmaire of Paris, to M. le Count 

 Raoul de Barrace of Angers, and after his death it was 

 purchased with the Barrace collection, in March 1887, by 

 M. le Baron Charles d'Hamonville, whose decease last year 

 has again brought the egg into the market/'' 



Mr. Robert H. Read exhibited a series of slides of Scan- 

 dinavian nests and eggs, including those of Fieldfares in 

 Scotch fir and birch trees, Short-eared Owl's with 10 eggs 

 amongst juniper and white reindeer moss, a fine and pictur- 

 esquely situated nest of the Rough-legged Buzzard with 

 5 eggs, nests of the Lapland Bunting, Wood-Sandpiper, and 

 Broad-billed Sandpiper, &c, all from Norway ; nests of 

 the Red-breasted Merganser, Honey-Buzzard, and Little 

 Ringed Plover from Sweden; and British nests of the Ringed, 

 Kentish, and Stone-Curlew Plovers from the shingly beaches 

 of Sussex and Kent. 



Mr. Read also exhibited various micro-photo lantern- 

 slides illustrating the structure of the down of Ducks, male 

 and female, in summer and winter plumage, with a view of 

 elucidating the phenomenon of the felting or cohesion of 

 down in the nests of Ducks, a cohesion which is entirely 

 wanting in the down taken from Ducks in winter plumage. 



Mr. Francis Gayner exhibited lantern-slides showing a 

 young Short-eared Owl in a nest in the Cambridgeshire 

 Fens, also some pictures of nests and eggs of Ringed Plovers 

 and Little Terns, an Eider Duck on her nest on the coast of 

 Inverness, views of the cliffs of Handa Island, Sutherland- 



