2 14 MR - J- H - GURNEY on the great auk (alca impennjs) 
IX. 
THE GREAT AUK (ALCA IMPENNIS) 
AND ITS EGG, IN NORWICH MUSEUM. 
By J. H. Gurney, F.Z.S. 
Read 3is£ January, 1911. 
The history of the beautiful Great Auk’s egg, which was 
presented last year to the Norwich Museum, and which is 
here figured, is, I regret to say, somewhat obscure, like that 
of so many others. The donor, Mr. James Reeve, bought 
it from Mr. J. H. Walter, whose father obtained it about the 
year 1850 from Dr. Pitman,* and that is nearly all we know 
of it. The late Professor Newton was of opinion that this 
egg was one of those which came from Herr J. G. Brandt, the 
dealer at Hamburgh, 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. 
(‘ Ootheca Wolleyana,’ vol. ii. p. 365.) Professor Newton 
told me that the egg now at Norwich is possibly the same egg 
marked in Herr Brandt’s sale catalogue (No. 661) at the 
price of thirty shillings. Like all the other Great Auk’s eggs 
which exist in collections, it has been blown in the old- 
fashioned way by means of holes at the two extremities. 
That at the larger end measures .95 x 0.6, as Mr. F. Leney, 
who has measured it, informs me, and is neatly filled up with 
a piece of egg-shell belonging to some other species. It will 
be observed that the marbling of this egg is very rich, and 
* See 'The Great Auk or Garefowl’ (1885), by Symington Grieve, 
appendix p. 31. 
