THE OSPEEY. 



Ill 



Letters. 



Washington, D. C, March 3, 1900. 

 Editors of the Osprky: 



I see with surprise in the last number of the 

 OSPRKY that the egg- of an Aepyotnis inaxinius 

 was sold for only fortj'-two guineas. Was it 

 imperfect? or why should it have commanded 

 no higher price? The eggs of the Great Auk 

 have been sold repeatedly, I believe, for consid- 

 erably more than a thousand and even nearly 

 fifteen hundred dollars, I understand. What is 

 the basis of value in such cases? The Aepyornis 

 has been extinct for an immeasurably longer 

 period of time; its eggs, I presume, are much 

 rarer and certainly they are much larger. Why, 

 then, are they not worth more than the Great 

 Auk's? 



Yours respectfully, 



F. M. Stuart. 



ANSWER. 



Eggs of the Great Auk bring much larger 

 prices partly because they are offered for sale 

 just often enough to stimulate competition, but 

 principally because the possession of an &<^^^ of 

 the Great Auk has become a fad among wealthy 

 collectors. There are more than eighty Great 

 Auk eggs in existence while probably not more 

 than a dozen really good specimens of ^pyornis 

 eggs have been obtained. And yet the former 

 bring from $900 to $1,200 at auction while the 

 price for the latter range from $180 to $210. 

 There are many birds much rarer than the 

 Great Auk, but probably none about which so 

 much has been written and in which there is 

 so much general interest. — F. A. L- 



Notes. 



A New Fossil Bird form the Eocene of 

 Wyoming has been made known by Dr. Charles 

 R. Eastman in the Geological Magazine (Eon- 

 don, February 1900, p. 54-57, pi. 4.) It was col- 

 lected from the middle division or fish-bearing 

 shales of the Eocene near the town of Fossil, and 

 the skeleton is in unusually good condition. It 

 wa;3 about "the size of a gallinule, rail or small 

 coot," and resembled "these forms in g^eneral 

 characters." Nevertheless the bird "cannot be 

 brought into strict agreement with any modern 

 ornithic family, but appears to be transitional 

 between true gallinaceous birds and the groups 

 tj'fified by coots, rails and gallinules. With 

 the last named, the skeleton exhibits a number 

 of features in common, and there is also some 

 resemblance to curassows." The new form has 

 received the name Galliiiiiloides u'yoi>ii)ig'e)isis. 

 We wish thai a less descriptive and misleading 

 name — not a h^'brid, too — had been selected. 

 We are, however, obliged to Dr. Eastman for 

 making the form known, but it will remain for 

 some one well acquainted with avian osteology 

 and gifted with true taxonomic instinct as well 

 as time to apply them to the interpretation of 

 the relationship of the fossil. It seems to us to 

 be more neatly related to the curassows. 



Since the above was written we have received 

 information respecting the specimen from Mr. 

 Lucas. This specimen has been studied in some 

 detail by Mr. P . A. Lucas and the results will 

 be given in a forthcoming Bulletin of the Mu- 

 seum of Comparative Zoology. His conclusions 

 are that the bird is most nearly related to the 

 Curassows and to the genus Ortalis among 

 li\ ing species. There are, however, peculiar 

 characters which render it necessary to place 

 the birds in a new family of the Alectoropodes. 



Ornithology of a Street Car. Of the ten 

 lady passengers who occupied the car with me 

 this morning seven had their head-dress adorned 

 with the mangled corpses or parts of such of the 



following birds: One grebe's skin, one wings, at 

 least a half a dozen dyed black; one contained 

 the motlej' assemblage of an immature Black 

 tern. Crow secondaries and Trogon tail feathers; 

 three were decked with Ostrich plumes, and 

 from one — a modest little bonnet in black, well 

 suited to the peaceful features of the elderly 

 matron — there moved a bunch of the dainty 

 little eg"rets in the morning breeze. It was too 

 bad; ail the tenderness of voice was drowned by 

 the cries of baby birds furnished for just this 

 adornment of her bonnet. How I wished to 

 say to her what the little plumes told me I Of 

 the remaining three, two were plain and the 

 other was decked with floral impossibilities. 



It seems the percentage of bird-trimmed hats 

 is far too great, and that the Audubon Society 

 will need continue its mission for many a year 

 to come.— Bartsch, Tuesday. 



A Note on a Long-tailed Breed of Fowls 

 in Tosa, Japan, has been published recently 

 (December 1891,) by Basil Hall Chamberlain in 

 the Transactions of the Asiatic Societ}- of Japan, 

 (vol. 27, 5 p. with 2 plates). Eour main varie- 

 ties are cultivated in Japan — Shira-fuji, with 

 white head and body feathers and graj^ legs; 

 Hakii, white all over with yellow legs; Totenko, 

 with red neck and body feathers; and Dokiri, 

 reddish mixed with white on body. All except 

 the Hakit have black tail feathers. The ex- 

 treme to which the tail feathers g-row is 18 feet, 

 but "12 feet is a rarity;" the usual extent is 7 to 

 11 feet: "They grow about 4 inches a month, 

 and continue to grow while the bird lives, which 

 may be 8 or 9 years." The shoulder feathers 

 "reach a length of 4 feet. Some of these may 

 fall off in moulting, but the tail feathers never 

 do." The cocks command a relatively high 

 price in Japan; one with feathers under 10 feet 

 long is valued at about $15; one with the 

 feathers over that length is worth about $25. 

 In some places they command still higher rates. 

 A hen, however, may be bought for as little as 

 a dollar and a half. 



