Plautus iiiipennis. 
of only four specimens in this country—in the Smithsonian 
Institution, In the Philadelphia Academy, the Cambridge 
Museum, and in Yassar College, Poughkeepsie (the latter 
the original of Audubon’s figures). There is an egg in 
each of the first two-mentioned collections.” 
According to- a late paper of Mr. Victor Patio, published 
in the Bulletin of the Swiss Ornithological Society, the 
total number of the skins of the (probably now extinct) 
Great Auk, in Europe and in the United States, amounts to 
seventy-one or possibly seventy-two. Besides the skins and 
eggs found in the United States he adds that “ seven skele¬ 
tons are enumerated as existing in Europe, and two (one ?) 
in the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Cambridge, 
Massachusetts.” He enumerates sixty-five eggs known to 
be in collections in Europe and America. The writer of 
the article adds: “ This enumeration of the remains of this 
bird is believed to be very nearly accurate, and although a 
few more specimens may yet be detected in local museums, it 
is not likely that the total can be much increased. The lim¬ 
ited number extant will sufficiently explain the high price 
which specimens of both skins and eggs bring when offered 
for sale, the sums obtained for the former varying from five 
hundred dollars to fifteen hundred dollars, and for the lat¬ 
ter two hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred and fifty 
dollars.” c XX/X -t • 
Cambridgeport, Mass. A '' ' 9^7- 
