9192 Birds. 
terrain diluvien,” by Malgaches when digging for an iron mine, and- 
was sent to the Mauritius and thence forwarded in 1858 to Paris, by 
Messrs. Thomas Lachambre and Co., of that island. * * * Some 
bones are said to have been found with the egg, but they were unfortu- 
nately broken before they were takeu out. This I the more regret, be- 
cause the fragments at Paris are so very imperfect. The surface is 
much stained with clay, consequently the fine lustre, which I suppose it 
originally had, has vanished. The colour was probably the same, when 
first laid, as that of the ostrich (Strudhio Camelus), viz. a pale yellow- 
white. In granulation it resembles South African specimens of the 
same bird, but the indentations are vastly coarser and larger. * * * 
Nature has taken care to wrap up the egg of the Zpyornis maximus in 
a shell of the very greatest strength: had it been otherwise it could 
hardly have stood the wear and tear it must have undergone, for though 
the bird has existed probably in modern days, yet it, I should say, 
only lingered. Therefore, this last-found egg may be many hundred 
years old, but taking it at two hundred years, that is a long time for an 
egg to remain in clay. In my specimen some heavy substance rattles 
when shaken, and I have been asked if it contains an embryo—but 
I do not think this likely: perhaps it may have in it one of those 
calculi common in ostrich eggs, which vary in size from a pea to a 
marble; I have one now before me, which appears to be of the same 
substance as the shell—it will not scratch glass. In ‘ Wild Sports of 
the World, by Greenwood, p. 324, speaking of these calculi or con- 
cretions of shell, he gives the following :—“ TI find Barrow says, these 
are pale yellow, in one egg we found nine, in another twelve.” Thun- 
berg says: “A stone is sometimes found, hard, white, flat and smooth, 
about the size of a bean; they are sometimes cut and made into 
buttons.” The substance in my egg appears very like one of the 
above; but I hesitate to satisfy my curiosity, to do which I must bore 
a hole in a specimen at present in the most perfect condition, and as 
regards England unique. * * * 
Perhaps the Madagascar bird, which was probably polygamous, had 
the habit of scattering eggs all over the country, as does the Rhea and 
also the ostrich. Darwin says of the former: “In the months of Sep- 
tember and October, the eggs in great numbers lie, either scattered or 
single, all over the country.” If this was the case with the species of 
which we are treating, the four eggs obtained would most likely be 
solitary ones, and a full nest of A;pyornis maximus may yet be dis- 
covered, particularly as the immense strength of the shell appears to 
defy time. But bones are our chief desiderata: these will probably 
