1898] NOTES AND COMMENTS 293 
forms number 7 of the thirty-second volume of the Bulletin of the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, in which is 
described and figured an entire and perfect specimen of an ostrich 
egg which was found a few years ago by a Chinese farmer at Yao 
Kuan Chuang, district of Hsi Ning, about fifty miles south south- 
west from Kalgan. The find consisted of two specimens, one of 
which was broken, and is perfectly well authenticated by the Rev. 
Wm. P. Sprague, who visited the spot in company with the man 
who found them and secured the unbroken specimen, which is now 
in the Harvard Museum. According to Mr Sprague’s account, 
corroborated by references to Richthofen’s China, the deposit from 
which the egg came was Loess. The egg itself presents almost 
exactly the same appearance as the Russian egg, of which a plaster 
cast is preserved, and in the opinion of Mr Eastman it may be con- 
sidered at present to belong to the same bird. The cubic contents 
of the Chinese egg is 1896°90 ccm. The occurrence of fossil 
ostrich remains in the Loess of such widely separated regions as 
Northern China and Russia has a direct bearing upon the distribu- 
tion of Struthious birds, and gives rise to some important inferences 
by Mr Eastman, regarding the past history of Ratite birds in 
general. 
THe Nortres or BIRpDs 
MANY a wanderer in the country has wished that he could identify 
the various birds that he hears singing on the hedges or calling in 
the fields. Those who live in the country often know the call, but 
can only identify the bird by its local name. Mr Charles Louis 
Hett of Brigg has produced a small octavo volume, handy for the 
pocket, which is to be obtained for half-a-crown of Messrs Jackson, 
Market Place, Brigg, which gives these notes and calls arranged in 
alphabetical order, most of which give a fair idea of the various 
sounds produced. Further than this, Mr Hett has also given a list 
of the popular local and old-fashioned names of British birds, under 
each of which the notes are repeated, and closes his little volume 
with a list of the scientific names of all birds accepted as British by 
the British Ornithologists’ Union in 1883. Equipped therefore 
with this volume, the bird lover may identify, with a certain ap- 
proach to accuracy, many of the birds met with in his rambles, and 
what is of greater importance, may, now he has a basis to go upon, 
try and record more accurately the delusive and fugitive calls of 
many of the species. 
LirE CONDITIONS OF THE OYSTER 
TuE following conclusions of the Committee appointed by the British 
Association to report on the elucidation of the life conditions of the 
