Auk Egg Auction

From all over Britain they came, dealers, collectors, scientists, tweedy ooelogists, 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 (first aviator to fly the Irish Sea--1912) 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 Ooelogists Union, also bought two eggs.

Not since 1844 has a Great Auk (Alca impennis) 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.

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