From all over Britain they came, dealers, collectors, scientists,
tweedy ologists, pale studious curates. On the auctioneer's pulpit
were bids from all over the world, for here was an occasion that might
not come again in a lifetime. Six Great Auk eggs, all wrapped in cotton
wool and lying in little boxes, and two stuffed Great Auk skins went on
sale last week in Stevens auction rooms in London. They fetched a
total of $10,922.50. As a collector the late florid George Dawson
Rowley of Brighton attempted to avoid competition by concentrating on
the eggs and skins of the extinct Great Auk. He assembled the greatest
collection of Auk eggs in the world before his death. At the sale last
week Captain Vivian Hewitt
bought two eggs and two skins, for a total of $7,245, and these added
to his previous collections made him in turn the world's greatest
private Great Auk collector. The Rev. Francis Charles Robert Jourdain,
Vicar of Ashburn-cum-Mapleton, president of the British Ologists
Union, also bought two eggs. Not since 1844 has a Great Auk trod the earth. It was a large flightless sea bird, slightly
smaller than a goose and more docile. An expert swimmer and diver,
its feet hurt so much that it often lay stretched prone on the rocks.
The Auk laid only one egg a year but no two eggs were ever alike in
size, shape or color. Contrary to general belief the Auk was not an
Arctic bird. It bred and lived in Iceland and on the islands off
Newfoundland where French fishermen were responsible for its
extinction. Auk hunting was simplicity itself. A gangplank was laid
from a fishing boat to a rock on shore. Inquisitive Auks waddled
painfully aboard, were knocked on the head and dumped in the hold. The
Auk eggs sold last week brought from $525 to $1,315 apiece. Like first
folio Shakespeares, each had an individual history. One was found by
the late great Alfred Newton in a box at the Royal College of
Surgeons. Lady Cust got another for five francs in a French shop. A
third belonged to Captain Cook, the explorer. Auk skins are not unknown
in the U. S. Stuffed Auks are in Washington's Smithsonian Institution
and New York's American Museum of Natural History. Phillips Andover
and Vassar have an Auk apiece.
