Birds. 9189 
afford; such bulky creatures require space and solitude; we express 
our surprise that the dodo should disappear, whereas the greater 
wonder would be that it should remain; how could it exist with man 
for a companion and an enemy? The Apyornis, in like manner, has 
yielded its place to man: when New Zealand was discovered the moa 
was certainly in existence, and has existed almost up to the day in 
which we live. The vast solitudes of the Great Sahara still protect 
the ostrich ; and the boundless wastes of South America preserve the 
Rhea from destruction; these inhospitable regions bid defiance 
‘to man, and hence offer a refuge to the creatures that man would 
inevitably destroy. The emeu, cassowary, mouruk and kiwi are cer- 
tainly doomed, unless, under the care of some such protector as 
Mr. Bennett, they should be converted into domestics, and, like the 
camel and the horse, lose all claim to the title of fere naturd. There 
is no necessity for any hypothesis, there is nothing inconsistent With 
the immutability of species, in the fact that the dodo has expired: so 
would the mouse if shut up with the cat: in all the changes now in 
progress we shall find no indication of any more miraculous power 
than this, that civilized man is forcing his way into every corner of the 
earth, and that while his advance favours the increase of his parasites, 
the rat, the mouse, and the sparrow, it is fatal to the existence of those 
bulky creatures which strive, but strive in vain, to escape the influence 
of his presence. 
These observations are induced by the simultaneous receipt of 
papers so replete with interest as those which I have here associated ; 
papers which it must ever be the chief aim, the legitimate object of the 
‘Zoologist, to preserve from oblivion, to set them up in the desert of 
time as landmarks by which some future Cuvier may shape his 
course. 
Mr. Rowley’s paper takes precedence of the others, not only because 
it is of earlier date, but because it goes back to a more remote period 
in the history of these giant Struthionide:, the observations by Mr. 
Buller, followed by the invaluable researches of Mr. Allis, serve to link 
the past with the present, while Mr. Bennett’s praiseworthy efforts 
show what may yet be accomplished in the way of inducing those 
huge wingless birds still to linger on earth’s surface under the fostering 
care of man. 
It has been my good fortune to be permitted to see and examine the 
huge egg which forms the subject of Mr. Rowley’s paper, and it is 
therefore with peculiar pleasure that I transfer his description without 
note or comment to the pages of the ‘ Zoologist ;’ but my readers will, 
