10 
Egg X. * “Lot 200b. Ditto.” 
Also obtained by Lord Lilford for - £107 2 O 
These two Eggs were sent up to Stevens’ Rooms by Mr. Robert 
Small, a dealer in natural history wares, of George Street, Edinburgh, 
who bought them for thirty-two shillings at Dowells’ Rooms in that 
town, about two months previously— vide “Sales otherwise than at 
Stevens’ Rooms,” pp. 32 and 33, 
Lord Lilford had in his possession at one time five eggs of the 
Great Auk. He gave four of them, including these two, to Professor 
Alfred Newton, of Magdalene College. Cambridge. The eggs are now 
in the collection of the University Museum of Zoology. The late 
Professor in Ootheca Wolleyana, p. 377, gives the following interesting 
account. “ These two eggs [Nos. IX. and X ] of four given to me by 
Lord Lilford, were bought by him in Mr. Stevens’ auction room, 2nd 
July, 1880, whither they had been sent for sale by Mr. Small, of 
Edinburgh, who himself had bought them for thirty-two shillings at a 
miscellaneous sale of the property of a Mr. W. Cleghorn Murray, of 3 
Clarendon Street, in Mr. Dowell’s auction room in that city, 8th May, 
1880, no one else present having any notion of their value. The first 
intimation 1 had of the discovery of these specimens, hitherto unknown 
to naturalists, was contained in a letter from Colonel (then Captain) 
Feilden, who by mere chance was prevented from being present. He 
lost no time in attempting to trace the history of these eggs and therein 
was materially assisted by Mr. Harvie-Brown. As usual the 
investigation was beset by many difficulties. At first it appeared that 
a former possessor had been a Mr. Little, a literary gentleman, who 
some thirty years before lived in Lauriston Lane in Edinburgh, where 
according to a Mr. Stillie, a bookseller, he had a most ‘ extraordinary 
collection of eggs ’; but subsequently Mr. Harvie-Brown made out that 
these eggs had undoubtedly belonged to a Mr. Joseph Moule, from 
1820-40 President of the Post Office at Edinburgh, one-half of whose 
collection containing these specimens was sold to Mr. Murray, the 
possessor of them until 1880, though Mr. Grieve in his monograph 
(‘The Great Auk or Garefowl,’ etc., London, 1885, p. 109) declares that 
Mr. Murray bought them of a Mr. Lister. The question of the 
intermediate ownership of these eggs is comparatively unimportant. 
I have been informed that on their acquisition by Mr. Small, 
the word “Pingouin” was plainly visible upon each, but that he 
(for some reason unknown to me) did his best to efface it, so that 
it is no longer legible, but he fortunately left upon them the 
mysterious inscription “ Egal ” or “ Egale ’’—whatever that may mean. 
These words plainly indicate that the eggs had passed through French 
hands, and one can hardly help connecting them with the two eggs 
some years since found to exist in the Edinburgh Museum, which are 
known to have come from *Dufresne’s collection bought by the 
*The ‘ Ibis,’ 1869 , pp. 358 - 60 , contains an interesting letter fiom Col. [then Captain] 
H. W. Feilden, C.B., on the purchase in 1818, by the Edinburgh University of a 
portion of the Dufresne collections. 
Dufresne was originally a dealer in natural history specimens and had also 
been for some time Conservator of the Cabinet of Natural History belonging 
to the Empress Josephine, but in 1815 or the following year he entered the 
Museum of Paris, as Aide-naturaliste, in which capacity it was that he parted 
with the colleciion obtained by the University of Edinburgh, and it remained 
the property of the University till it was transferred to the newly-established 
Museum of Science and Art at Edinburgh. 
