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.

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    Prof. Steenstrup really to be that of an egg of the Great Auk. I think the Swedes themselves have published something about it, but I do not know where. A preliminary report, a communication from the Swedish geologist Dr Holst, was published by Dr G. Hartlaub in ‘ Abhaudlungen des Natur- wissenschaftlichen Yereins zu Bremen,’ Bd. xiv., Heft 1, 1896 (the note in question perhaps only to be found in ‘ Zweite Ausgabe, als Mauuskript gedruckt ’).” Eggs. British Isles. London.—The late Lord Garvagh’s collection. At p. 106, ‘ The Great Auk or Garefowl,’ I referred to the broken egg that was in this collection, and remarked that it was probably still in the possession of the Dowager Lady Garvagh. At the time I wrote (1885) I was under the impression, from informa- tion received from the late Mr R Champley, that the Trough- ton egg had been sold by the executors of the late Lord Garvagh to the late Mr G. D. Rowley, whose collection is now in the possession of Mr G. Fydell Rowley. Mr Champley had examined the Rowley collection, and had also a figure of the Troughton egg sent him by Dr Troughton from Coventry, 8th February 1861. However, Mr Champley seems to have been mistaken in his opinion, as Mr E. Bidwell informed me on 12th June 1888 that the egg that had gone amissing was that which belonged to Dr Troughton. This statement seems to be confirmed by the following notice, which appeared in the letter of the London correspondent of the ‘Scotsman,’ 22nd April 1898:— Great interest was excited this evening at the meeting of the British Ornithologists’ Club over the exhibition of a remarkably fine specimen of the egg of the Great Auk, which had been lost sight of for more than five- and-twenty years. The egg has a somewhat singular history. It was sold in 1842 by the late Mr A. D. Bartlett to a Mr Maunde for £2. Ten years later the specimen changed hands for £5, and in 1869 it was acquired for £60 [according to the late Mr R. Champley, should be £64*] by the 1 Mr Henry Stevens writes me on 20th July 1898 : “ I have made an unsuc- cessful hunt for the sale books of the late Dr Troughton’s sale. Mr Bidwell has, I believe, the late Mr Bond’s catalogue, in which he entered the price at the time
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