82 Shufeldt, Fossil Birds' Eggs. [.nd'oct. 



Ihe case, and taken in connection with what I have stated above 

 in the ]ast ])aragraph or two, there does not seem to be the 

 sHghtest reason for beheving that the bird which laid that egg 

 (the fossil one) was a Duck, or in any way related to the Anatidcc. 

 However, it may have been ; but there is just as much ground 

 for believing that its parent was some big Pheasant, a Sage Cock, 

 or even some extinct, small-sized ratite or struthioas bird, the 

 remains of which have, as yet, not been discovered. 



Again, this fossil egg may have been a manufactured one, made 

 with the intent to deceive some unwary palaeontologist — a trick 

 frequently resorted to by a certain class of fakers to obtain money 

 for such specimens. Dr. Farrington had this in mind when he 

 said in his above-cited article : — " If the specimen be not a 

 petrified egg, therefore, it is as perfect an imitation of one in 

 external appearance as can be conceived of " (p. 193). 



Now, I am of the opinion that the normal contents of a bird's 

 egg have never been fossilized. Dr. Farrington's interesting dis- 

 cussion on this subject to the contrary. He seems to believe 

 that such a process has taken place, and possibly did take place, 

 in the specimen described by him. " At first thought," he says, 

 " an egg of the sort here described may seem too perishable for 

 preservation by a process of true petrifaction. It is difficult to 

 understand how, in such a mass as an egg, petrifying liquids could 

 pass to and fro, removing particles of organic matter and replacing 

 them by particles of silica, in the way that it is generally under- 

 stood that petrifactions usually take place. On further con- 

 sideration, however, the natural petrifaction of an egg need not 

 seem to be an impossible phenomenon. If covered as soon as 

 deposited, by mud or earth, as it is likely to have been in this 

 region, its substance might endure for months or years. Or the 

 process of petrifaction might have begun at once, since the 

 present chalcedony veins of the region show that circulating 

 siliceous waters are abundant there. 



" Given conditions of this sort, I believe that petrifaction could 

 have gone on by a process of endosmose and exosmose, similar 

 to that believed by M. Forster Heddle,* to produce the formation 

 of agates." 



Personally, I do not believe that any such phenomenon ever 

 took place in the case of an egg, as is here referred to and offered 

 as an explanation of the petrifaction of birds' eggs by Dr. 

 Farrington. In the first place, the entire question of the addling 

 of the egg has been overlooked — a process that takes place in a 

 comparatively short time, accompanied with very marked changes 

 in the egg. These changes would militate not only against the 

 probability of an egg's " settling" down in the mud, under which 

 conditions only could endosmosis and exosmosis go on, but they 

 would increase very much the chances of the egg being broken. 

 We have also to consider the matter of differences in specific 



* Nature, vol. xxix., p. 419. 



