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Description: | The museum owns a large collection of bird eggs compiled by R. Hay Fenton. The collection consists of 10,478 eggs from 389 species. The eggs were predominantly collected in England; occasionally by Fenton but also by many others. Of special interest are a collection of 500 cuckoo eggs found in the nests of 59 'Fosters'. These eggs are accompanied by the hosts' eggs found in these clutches (1774 eggs, in total). One clutch contains two cuckoo eggs laid by the same bird; an unusual occurrence. Hay Fenton arranged 25 sets of host and parasite eggs to show that the Cuckoo is unable to produce an egg to match that of the "Foster" in whose nest it places its egg.
Other items of particular interest in the collection include an egg of the extinct great auk which Mr Fenton purchased, with the aid of Lord Strathcona, for 190 guineas in 1909, and a clutch of the eggs of Ross's gull, probably the first ever taken by man. Thirty six of these gull eggs were collected by S. A. Buthurlin along the Kolyma River, North East Siberia, on June 13, 1905. Of equal historic interest is the egg of Wilson's petrel collected in the South Orkneys by Dr P. H. Harvey Pirie of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902-4.
Super collection: Zoology Museum.
Sub-collection: Aves: bird egg collection.
Objects: Bird eggs from many orders, including Anseriformes ; Charadriiformes ; Cuculiformes ; Falconiformes ; Galliformes ; Passeriformes. | Subjects: | bird Zoology Ross's gull. Great Auk cuckoo egg | Source: | University of Aberdeen | Address: | King's College,
AB24 3FX | Identifier: | ABDUZ:CLD15 | Relation: | ABDUA:CLD00 | Go to resource |
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