17 
Gardner to *Mr. Buddicom (not Buddicom as the name is printed). I 
do not know, hut have reason to think that Mr. B. bought it of Shaw, 
of Shrewsbury, to whom it was sold in September, 1844, by Mr A. D. 
Bartlett, who bought it of a stranger as a Northern Diver.” 
The following letter, however, kindly given to me by Mr. Edward 
Bidwell, from Mr. W. S. Buddicom (son of the Rev. R J. Buddicom), 
gives a different history of this bird. 
Ticklerton Court, 
Church Stretton, 
Shropshire, 
Dec . 24 th, 1 S 97 , 
Dear Sir,— 
The Great Auk originally belonged to the late William 
Pinches, Esq., who died in 1849, and subsequently passed into my 
father’s possession, but I have no record how Mr. Pinches got it. My 
father married Miss Pinches —Mr, Pinches’ sister—for his second wife, 
and she became her brother's heir, or shall we say, heiress, and so my 
father got the Bird. I well remember this bird from early childhood, 
and, to tell you the truth, was very sorry it was sold, but no doubt my 
father had no idea the Great Auk would ever become so valuable; my 
father’s memorandum says (speaking of the Great Auk), ‘ Sold to Sir 
H. Milner.’ These are the exact words. I never heard my father in 
his life mention Graham, of York, and believe my father (who was 
very exact) did, as he more than once told me, sell the bird direct to the 
Baronet, whose initial my father has put as Sir H. Doubtless this was 
a slip of the pen, and it should have been Sir W. Milner. Sir Frederick 
Milner was only a child when his father, Sir W., got the Bird in 1856, 
I can absolutely vouch for my particulars as follows :— 
The bird belonged— 
First, to Mr. Pinches. 
Secondly, to his sister—my stepmother. 
• Thirdly, to my father. 
Fourthly, to the Baronet. 
But, as I said before, I have [no] trace of how Mr. Pinches got it. 
With best Xmas wishes, 
I remain, yours very truly, 
[Signed] W. S. Buddicom. 
To E. Bidwell, Esq. 
Mr.'Symington Grieve, in his “Recent Notes on the Great Auk 
or Gare Fowl” (Trans. Edin. Field Nat. and Micro. Soc., Vol. II., pp. 
107-8), gives an account which is somewhat erroneous and at variance 
with both those of Professor Newton and of Mr, W. S. Buddicom. 
This specimen, with the rest of.the Milner collection of British 
Birds, had been on loan at the Leeds Museum for some years. The bird 
was badly [mounted, but the case, fortunately perhaps, came to grief 
when on the railway journey from Leeds to London and it was then 
decided to have the bird re-mounted by Cullingford of Durham, and 
so well was the work done, that the specimen is now one of the finest. 
*The Rev. Robert Joseph Buddicom was Rector of Smethcote, .Salop, 
froju 1842—62, 
