166 On some Bones and Eggs of a Gigantic Bird. 



belonged to their chief, and on account of its extreme rarity. 

 Thus M. Dumarele was unable to produce any proof in support 

 of his statement, and, without casting any suspicion on his vera- 

 city, it was thought that he might have been imposed upon by 

 the natives. 



According to these natives, who were of the race of Sakalavas, 

 the gigantic bird of Madagascar still existed, but was extremely 

 rare. In other parts of the island, on the contrary, its present 

 existence is not credited ; but at least a very ancient tradition is 

 met with, relative to a bird, of colossal size, which threw down 

 an ox and devovired it ; it is to this bird that the Madagascans 

 attribute the gigantic eggs which are occasionally found in their 

 island. We take this statement from an interesting letter, in 

 which M. Lepervanche Meziere, a well-informed naturalist of 

 the Isle of Reunion, kindly informed the Museum of Natui-al 

 History of the discovery of the eggs of jEpyomis, immediately 

 on its having been made*. 



It is scarcely necessary to add, that the tradition which we have 

 just mentioned would attribute to the jEptjornis habits which are 

 far from having belonged to it : it is a fable quite similar to that 

 which exists in New Zealand, on the subject of the Moa, and 

 which has no more serious foundation. The ^pgornis, like the 

 Dinornis, was a Rudipen, and that species, of which popular 

 belief has made a gigantic and terrible bird of prey, like to the 

 Roc or Rue of the Eastern tales f, had neither talons, nor wings 

 adapted for flying, and must have fed peaceably on vegetable 

 substances. 



* This new letter informs us, positively, that one of the eggs at least 

 comes from the same bed as the osseous fragments. 



f The fables respecting the Roc may not indeed be unconnected with 

 these discoveries of gigantic eggs, made no doubt from time to time in the 

 island of Madagascar, and with the belief to which they have given rise 

 among the natives. But it would be going too far to make of the Roc, 

 with Mr. Strickland, a Madagascan bird, which we might then be induced 

 to refer completely to the yEpyornis. Mr. Stiickland has misunderstood 

 Marco Polo, the only authority whom he has here cited. Marco Polo, in 

 his celebrated account (book iii. chap. 40), speaks of the Roc immediately 

 after ha\-ing treated of Madagascar, but not as belonging to that island. 

 Quite the contrary, he makes it an inhabitant of quelques autres isles oultre 

 Madagascar sur la coste du Midy (French edit, of 1556, p. 115); aliarum 

 insularum ultra Madaigascar (Latin edit, of 1671, p. 157). 



[I can only say that in Marsden's edition of Marco Polo (4to, London, 

 1818, p. 707), I read as follows : — " The people of the island (viz. Mada- 

 gascar) report that at a certain season of the year, an extraordinary' kind of 

 bird, which they call a rukh, makes its appearance from the southern 

 region ; " &c. Polo stfites that the " other numerous islands lying further 

 south " were unfrequented by ships, and his account of the Roc unques- 

 tionably refers to Madagascar. — H. E. Strickland.] 



