108 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



An Egg of the Great Auk. — There was considerable excitement 

 amongst ornithologists and oologists in London on Feb. 22nd, when an egg 

 of the Great Auk, Alca impennis, was offered for sale by auction at the 

 well-known sale-rooms of Mr. Stevens in King Street, Covent Garden. This 

 egg, which formerly belonged to Yarrell, was purchased by him with other 

 eggs for a trifling sum at Boulogne, about 1838, and while in his possession 

 was figured by Hewitsou in his standard work on British Birds-eggs. After 

 Yarrell's death, in 1856, it was sold for £21 at Stevens's Sale-rooms, and 

 through the intervention of a dealer, became the property of the late 

 Frederick Bond, in whose beautiful collection of eggs it remained for 

 something like twenty years, until upon the sale of his collection, in 1875, 

 it passed into the possession of Baron Louis d'Hamonville, who bought 

 the entire collection, and by whom it has now been once more offered for 

 sale. An egg with so good a pedigree, and so well known to English 

 collectors, mauy of whom must have seen it while in Bond's collection, 

 was not likely to exchange hands for a trifle. Mr. Stevens, after reminding 

 those present at the sale that the last egg of the Great Auk sold by him in 

 1888 realized £225, opened the biddings atone hundred pounds. £110 

 was quickly offered, and the biddings, mounting up by ten guineas at a 

 time, eventually reached the exorbitant sum of three hundred guineas 

 (£315), at which price it was declared to have been purchased by Sir 

 Vauncey Crewe, Bart., of Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, whose name will be 

 familiar to many readers of this Journal. 



MAMMALIA. 

 Habits of the Otter.— Referring to the Editor's interesting article on 

 this animal in * The Zoologist' for February, 1894, I would point out that 

 the "nests" constructed by the Otters amongst the reed-beds are really not 

 " peculiar to the district referred to." When observing birds in certain 

 marshes in West Jutland last May (1893), I came across "lairs" or 

 " nests " of Otters, formed in reed- or cane-brakes, precisely similar to those 

 described by Mr. Southwell and referred to by the Editor (p. 43). These 

 nests did, in fact, much resemble those of Coots, except that they were much 

 larger, and, if my memory serves me correctly, I believe I saw similar 

 " Otter nests " in the Outer Hebrides, on certain islets in the lochs, some 

 eleven years ago. — Alfred C. Chapman (Moor House, Leamside, Durham). 



Food of the Otter. — Apropos of the statements (pp. 7, 53) that the 

 Otter's food consists not only of " fish, flesh* and fowl," but also of mollusca 

 and Crustacea, the following quotation, from Messrs. Harvie Brown and 



