M. A. Grandidier on the Egg-beds of /Epyornis. 65 



feathers it might well be taken for a distinct species. I have, 

 however, two partially moulted, showing the change from the 

 immature into the adult. 



The Tingchow mountains seem to promise a truly golden 

 harvest. As soon as the moulting-season is past I will send to 

 ransack them again. 



Amoy, 18th September, 1867. 



V. — Observations on the Egg-beds of ^Epyornis. 

 By Alfred Grandidier*. 



The attention of the Academy has been called, on several occa- 

 sions, by M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint- Hilaire, to a gigantic bird, 

 whose existence had been revealed to him by some eggs of 

 colossal size, and by some fragments of broken bones, sent from 

 the southern part of Madagascar. 



It did not then seem impossible to the learned Academician 

 that this bird, to which he gave the name of jEpyornis, still 

 lived in the unknown countries of the south of the island ; most 

 scientific men have shared his opinion. The latest researches 

 destroy all hope in this respect. 



The immense extent comprised between the sea, latitude 

 20° S., and longitude 44° 30' E. [of Paris], which had hitherto 

 remained unexplored, is a vast arid plateau, of the height of 

 142 metres, interrupted here and there by clumps of stunted 



* [We have to offer our best thanks to M. Grandidier for a copy of 

 this paper, " Observations sur le gisement des ceufs de rEpiornis,'' com- 

 municated to the Academy of Sciences of Paris, and printed in the 

 ' Comptes Rendus ' for the past year (vol. Ixv. pp. 476-478), as -well as to 

 Mr. G. Dawson Rowley for a translation of the same, he having obtained 

 the author's permission to publish it in our pages. So far as we are awaro, 

 this paper is the first that has been written on the subject by any one 

 personally acquainted with Madagascar ; and hence the Ivuowledge we 

 have possessed respecting the geological formation and the kind of 

 country in which the remains of jEpyomis ma.vimus have been found lias 

 hitherto been extremely imperfect. M. Grandidier lias recently returned 

 to Madagascar to renew his researches there ; and we trust that even 

 greater success Avill attend his future than hf lias already met with lu 

 his past investigations. —Ed.] 



N. S. vol.. IV. F 



