31 
the curators of the Museums of Liverpool and Vienna, to which we can almost 
alone look for the scanty remnants of all the labours of Cook and his 
companions. The prices obtained were by no means high, and indicate that 
there was little competition. I have not been at the trouble of adding up the 
amount, but I should at a guess, say that the lots did not average live shillings 
each, which would come to something less than £1,900 for a collection that is 
said to have cost £30.000.” This account is taken from the late Professor 
Newton’s Notes on some Old Museums, a paper read by him before the 
Museums Association ; at their meeting at Cambridge, in 1891 . The old 
Museum building in the Blackfriars’ Koad—known as the Rotunda—is still 
standing.) 
MOUNTED SPECIMEN V., 
EGGS XXV. and XXVI. 
(Sale number twenty-eight.) 
A mounted specimen of the bird, and an egg, on May 6tli, 1819. 
At the sale of Mr. William Bullock’s collection—The London Museum, 
or Pantherium, in the Egyptian Temple (or Hall as it came to be 
called), 22 Piccadilly, London. The bird and egg were sold together, 
and described in the sale catalogue (5th day’s sale) as : 
Bird Y. - “ Lot 43. Great Auk (Alca impennis'), male ; 
a very fine specimen of this exceedingly 
rare bird, killed at Papa Westra, in the 
Orkneys. The only one taken on the 
British coast for many years: and an 
Egg XXV. - Egg, in a glass case.” 
Bought by Dr. Leach (Keeper of the Zoological 
Department of the British Museum) for £16 15 6 
Egg XXYI. 
Described in the same sale catalogue (21st day’s sale) on June 3rd, 
1819, as 
“ Lot 123. Egg of the Great Auk Alca 
impennia [s/<?] and other rare British eggs.” 
Also bought by Dr. Leach (of the British Museum) for 17s. or 12s. 
Professor Newton, in his copy of the sale catalogue, has 12s. marked 
as the price paid for Lot 123, but Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe (“History of the 
Collections contained in the Natural History Departments of the 
British Museum,” Vol. II.p. 234) puts the price paid bj T Dr. Leach at l?s. 
Both the bird and the two eggs are in all probability those in the 
National Collection. Mr. Eugene W. Oates, in his “ Catalogue of the 
collection of Birds' Eggs in the British Museum,” Vol. I. p. 165 ; writes 
that “The British Museum possesses two eggs of the Great Auk. 
These two examples were glued down to boards and exposed to view 
