Supplementary note on the great auk or garefowl (Alca impennis Linn) / by Symington Grieve.

  • Grieve, Symington.
Date:
[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Supplementary note on the great auk or garefowl (Alca impennis Linn) / by Symington Grieve. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/72 page 241
    1896-97-] Since I read you ray last paper, three previously unrecorded eggs have been discovered. The first of these was found in the collection of Mr S. E. Shii'ley, at Ettington Park, Stratford-on- Avon (see p. 263). It had been labelled as the egg of a penguin, and had remained unnoticed for some eighty years. The other two eggs were accidentally discovered at a sale, and their purchase created quite a sensation in oological circles in the spring of 1894. Notices appeared in the leading daily papers and journals when these eggs were again offered for sale at the auction rooms of Mr Stevens, Covent Garden, London, on 24th April 1894. As might he expected, a number of the stories put into circulation varied considerably, but the follow- ing account, which appeared in the ‘ Morning Advertiser ’ of 25th April 1894, is as accurate as any that appeared in the daily press:— Sale of Great Auk's Eggs.—Yesterday afternoon, at 38 King Street, Covent Garden, Mr J. C. Stevens sold by auction two recently discovered eggs of the Great Auk. In submitting for sale the first of these lots, the auctioneer said the egg was one of the very finest of its type, and had been most carefully blown. It was slightly cracked, but the fracture, he remarked, was imperceptible to himself. The owner of the eggs, the auctioneer went on to say, purchased them at an auction in the south of England, together with some fossils, for the sum of 36s. Considering that he tied them in his pocket-handkerchief and rode home on his bicycle with them, it was wonderful they were not broken to pieces. The bidding started at 50 guineas, and rose by tens to 160 guineas, and from that by tens and twenties until 260 guineas was reached, at which price the egg was knocked down to Mr Herbert Massey. The auctioneer ex- pressed great disappointment that the egg had not realised more than one sold recently by him for £300, as he considered this a far better specimen. The next lot submitted, though also a Great Auk’s egg, was a specimen of an entirely different type, and almost unique in its markings. It was damaged to a somewhat greater extent than the other, but the dilapida- tions were not noticeable when it was lying in a cabinet. The bidding started at 30 guineas, and advanced by tens to 150, afterwards progressing by fives to 175 guineas to a private collector, who did not wish his name mentioned (see p. 260). The most reliable account is, however, that of Mr Edward Bid well, which appears at p. 422 of the ‘ Ibis,’ July 1894 :— At the disposal by auction of the contents of the Little Hermitage, near Rochester, on 14th of March last (1894), one of the lots, which was described “a collection of shells and fossils,” was purchased for 36
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