48 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



or 17 cassowary's eggs, or 6 ostrich eggs ! The length measurer! 12.6 inches, the 

 breadth 8.6 inches, and the shell had a thickness of 0.11 of an inch. No wonder that 

 the natives employed them for different domestic purposes. In fact, the first knowl- 

 edge of the eggs was received when some Madagascar natives came to Mauritius to 

 buy rum, bringing dEpiornis eggs with them to hold the liquor. This led to inquiries, 

 and two eggs and some fragments of bones were obtained by Mr. Malavois, and sent 

 to Paris. Since that time other remains, which have furnished the material for 

 Alphonse Milne Edwards's investigations, published in 1869 and 1873, were discovered 

 by Grandidier and others. 



It has been shown that the earlier calculations of the size of jffipiornis were much 

 too high, and that ^E. maximus in reality was not taller than a large African ostrich, 

 notwithstanding the enormous size of the egg, and that the smallest of the three 

 species known, ^E. modesties, was not much larger than the great bustard. The more 

 astounding is the stoutness and massiveness of the hind extremities, which were still 

 more ' elephantine ' than those of the elephant-footed moa. The characters of the 

 bones at once refer the elephant-birds of Madagascar to the neighborhood of the 

 ostriches and moas, particularly the former; and, as they seem to have had only three 

 toes, Professor Bianconi's idea that they were rapacious, or rather condor-like, birds 

 the rue was said to be a bird of that order is not well founded. An additional 

 proof is that the microscopic examination of the egg, according to Nathusius, shows 

 an approach to that of Struthio, and bears no resemblance to that of the larger 

 raptores. 



The chief characters of the bones known are the remarkable widening and flatten- 

 ing of the metatarsal bone ; the enormous size of the leg-bone, which is over 25 inches 

 long, with a circumference at its upper extremity of 18 inches, while the bone at its most 

 contracted portion is only 6 inches round, thus showing a singular enlargement of the 

 articular ends; it differs from the same bone in the Dinornithoideae in having no 

 osseous bridge over the groove of the extensor muscle of the toes, in this respect 

 agreeing with the existing Struthiones. The thigh-bone was of singular proportions, 

 being of extraordinary thickness, while in length it does not measure one half more 

 than its lower extremity ; it was pneumatic, contrary to what exists in Apteryx and 

 Dinornis. 



The natives of Madagascar assert that a few of the giant birds are still alive in 

 some of the most secluded and unexplored parts of the island, and occasionally an 

 exciting report of some traveler having been in the neighborhood of them reaches us 

 through the newspapers, but the probability is that they are totally exterminated, and 

 without doubt by the hand of man, as the famous French traveler Alfred Grandidier 

 emphatically assures us; but there are reasons to believe that the report of some 

 having been still alive not more than two hundred years ago is not entirely unfounded. 

 The whole history of the ^Epiornithes, the enormous, massive Struthious birds, con- 

 fined to a large island in the southern seas, and extinguished by the action of man, is 

 a remarkable counterpart of that of the moas on New Zealand. 



ORDER III. APTERYGES. 



The English naturalists who, about seventy years ago, received the first kiwi 

 skin from New Zealand through Captain Barclay, of the ship 'Providence,' were 

 greatly perplexed as to the relationship of that singular bird, not larger than a hen, and 

 which had no wings, was covered with hair-like feathers, possessed a long beak with 



