318 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



ON THE BONES AND EGGS OF A GIGANTIC BIRD IN MADAGASCAR. 



M. SAINT HILAIRE has recently communicated evidence to the French 

 Academy of the existence, at Madagascar, geologically recent, of a 

 gigantic bird, entirely new to the scientific world. The discovery of 

 the evidence was made in 1850, by M. Abadie, captain of a merchant- 

 man. During a stay at Madagascar, he one day observed, in the hands 

 of a native, a gigantic egg, which had been perforated at one of its 

 extremities, and used for domestic purposes. The accounts which he 

 received concerning it soon led to the discovery of a second egg, of 



nearly the same size, which was found, perfectly entire, in the bed of 

 a torrent, among the debris of a landslip which had taken place a short 



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ightly 



now generally adopted, as sub-fossil. These were all sent to Paris 

 but one of the eggs was unluckily broken. The others arrived in safety, 

 and M. Saint Hilaire has presented them to the Academy. These eggs 

 differ from each other in form : one has its two ends very unequal ; the 

 other approaches nearly to the form of an ellipsoid. 



The dimensions of the latter are : Largest diameter, 13 inches ; 

 smallest diameter, 8 do. ; largest circumference, 33 do. ; smallest 

 circumference, 85 do. The thickness of the shell is about the eighth 

 of an inch. This great Madagascar egg would contain about seventeen 

 English pints, and its gross volume is six times that of an ostrich egg, 

 and equal to 148 ordinary hens' eggs. To carry out the comparison 

 still further, one of the eggs of the Madagascar bird would be equal 

 in bulk to 50,000 eggs of the humming-bird. 



The first question to be decided was Are these the eggs of a bird 

 or of a reptile ? The structure of the shells, which is strictly analogous 

 to that of the eggs belonging to large birds with rudimentary wings, 

 would have sufficed to determine the question ; but it has been com- 

 pletely set at rest by the nature of the bones which were sent with 

 them. One of them is the inferior extremity of the great metatarsal 

 bone of the left side ; the three-jointed apophyses exist, two of them 

 being nearly perfect. Even a person unskilled in comparative anatomy 

 cannot fail to see that these are the remains of a bird. 



M. Saint Hilaire assigns to this bird the generic name of JEpyornis, 

 and to the species, maximus. It cannot be classed with the Orni- 

 thichnites on the one hand, or with the Ostrich and allied genera on the 

 other, but it is the type of a new genus in the group of the Rudipens, 

 or Brevipens. Its height, according to the most careful calculations 

 made by comparative anatomists, must have been about twelve English 

 feet, or about two feet higher than the largest of the extinct birds 

 (dinornis} of New Zealand. According to the natives of the Sakalamas 

 tribe, of Madagascar, this immense creature, although extremely rare, 

 still exists. In other parts of the island, however, no traces of belief 

 in its present being can be found. But there is a very ancient and 

 universally received tradition amongst the natives, relative to a bird of 

 colossal size, which used to slay a bull, and feed on the flesh. To this 

 bird they assign the gigantic eggs lately found in their island. That 



