6 On a large Fossil Egg from Cherson. 



The colour of the egg is a yello^vish brown, which is not, 

 however, equally spread over the whole surface, but in patches 

 brighter here and darker there, and hardly represents the ori- 

 ginal colour. Still less are numbers of blackish dendritic 

 spots irregularly spread over the egg to be reconciled with 

 its original colour. These are certainly either really den- 

 dritic, or the remnants of a parasitic vegetation which is often 

 met with in fossil remains. 



Of the thickness of the egg-shell nothing definite can be 

 ascertained, since the egg is quite intact, except as re- 

 gards two cracks, of a hair's breadth, said to have resulted 

 from an attempt to ascertain the contents. In one place 

 a hardly perceptible splinter has been taken off; but the 

 fracture is so thin that it does not extend through the 

 thickness of the shell, and only shows its hard enamel-like 

 substance. 



The perfect state of the egg when found proves that it 

 must be empty, and not filled with mineral substance. 

 This is the cause of its weighing so little as to have been 

 swimming in the river when discovered. According to 

 Herr Dobrowolsky's information it weighs about 200 Rus- 

 sian pounds. 



According to Eichwald"^, fossil remains of birds are very 

 scarce in Russia, although v. Nordmann has discovered some 

 in a tertiary loam near Odessa t (that is, not far from where 

 this egg was found) . But as to what genera these bones be- 

 long to we find no information recorded. 



The above-described form of this egg-shell, as well as 

 its dimensions, lead us first to think of a Struthious bird 

 which in size must have exceeded the Ostrich. This, how- 

 ever, is not the first gigantic bird recorded of the Tertiary 

 epoch of Europe, since fifty years ago remains of such a bird 

 were found in our quarter of the globe — namely, those of Gas- 

 tornis parisiensis, of the Eocene of Meudon, near Paris, allied 

 to the Swimmers and Waders. 



* Lethaea Rossica, Stuttgardt, Bd. iii. 1853, p, 325. 

 t " Ub. d. Entderkung reiclihaltiger Lager von fossilen Knochen in Siid- 

 Bussland," JubiUtiun semiseculare Fischeri deW. (fol.Moscau,1847), p. 9. 



