NOTES AND QUERIES. 269 



to preserve it, as the hair was beginning to slip badly upon the abdomen ; 

 but setting to work with great care, it has turned out a very pretty little 

 specimen.— Oxley Grabham (Flaxton, York). 



BIRDS. 



Sale of Great Auk's Egg. — Another egg of the Great Auk has lately 

 changed hands (vide aiitea, p. 193). On June 25th last, Mr. J. C. Stevens 

 offered for sale by auction in his well-known room in King Street, Covent 

 Garden, an egg of Alca impennis, from the collection of Baron Louis 

 d'Hamonville. The history of this egg as given in the Sale Catalogue is 

 as follows : — " Lot 211. Egg of the Great Auk. Taken in Icelaud about 

 1830 by a shipowner of St. Malo, who bequeathed it to the Comte Raoul 

 de Barace, whose collection was purchased by the Baron d'Hamonville. 

 This specimen (slightly cracked), which in colouring and texture is unique, 

 was figured in the 'Memoires' of the Societe Zoologique de France, 1888 

 (pi. vi. tig. c), and additional notes on its history appeared in the ' Bulletin ' 

 of the same Societe in 1891." 



Mr. Symington Grieve, in his work on the Great Auk, referring 

 (Appendix, p. 25) to the three eggs of this bird in the collection of the 

 Comte de Barace at Angers, states that they came " from Iceland by way 

 of St. Malo, some time before 1837 "; but, according to his own showing 

 [op. cit. p. 104), one of them seems to have been procured in Paris by the 

 Abbe Vincelot of Angers, from whom it was purchased by the Comte de 

 Barace, who obtained another of them from Fairmaire of Paris. What 

 authority there is for fixing the date of the third example (which according 

 to the recent sale catalogue was "taken in Iceland about 1830") is not 

 stated, nor is any evidence afforded that the finder was a shipowner of 

 St. Malo. The French expression may have been " armateur," but possibly 

 the word intended was " amateur." However that may be, the egg just sold 

 by auction was one of three which belonged to the Comte de Barace, and 

 which subsequently came into the possession of the late owner, Baron 

 d'Hamonville. The latter has published in the 'Bulletin' of the Societe 

 Zoologique de France (1891, pp. 34—38) the history (so far as he could 

 collect it) of each of them, having previously furnished coloured figures 

 of the natural size (together with a similar figure of Yarrell's specimen, 

 which he acquired iu 1875, on his purchase of Bond's collection), in the 

 'Memoires' of the same Societe for 1888 (pp. 224—227, Pis. V.— VI.). 

 One of these M. de Barace had purchased through Fairmaire of Paris in 

 1858 from the Baron de Veze, who had bought it of Parzudaki of Paris, in 

 1855, for 500 francs. It became the property of Baron d'Hamonville in 

 March, 1887. The two others, it appears, came from Iceland (as stated by 

 M. de Barace in a letter to Dawson Rowley dated Jau. 13, 1867), whence 

 he had received them more than thirty years before (about 1834 or 1835), 



