EASTMAN: REMAINS OF STRUTHIOLITHUS CHERSONENSIS. 129 
the latter in retaining it, provisionally at least, or until information 
is at hand concerning the creature itself. The specific title applied 
by Brandt to the ovulite and its as yet unknown parent bird is 
S. chersonensis. 
According to Eichwald, fossil avian remains are extremely scarce in 
Russia. An instance is reported by von Nordmann, however, where 
certain bones were recovered from Tertiary deposits near Odessa, but no 
hint is given as to their probable affinities. The Pliocene of the Siwalik 
Hills in India, as is well known, has yielded ostrich remains which 
indicate a species (S. asiaticus) apparently closely related to S. camelus ; 
and other fragments, described as S. karatheodoris, have been found in 
the Lower Pliocene of Samos. 
Up to the present time no further examples, either of egg shells or 
of the skeleton of S. chersonensis have come to light; and as already 
remarked, all that remains of the unique type are the fragments said to 
be still preserved in the St. Petersburg Museum. We have, therefore, 
no little satisfaction in being able to announce the discovery of a second 
perfect specimen, which has recently found its way to this country from 
China. The configuration of the shell and much of its surface detail 
are shown on the accompanying plate, which has been reproduced from 
photographs. The history of the new specimen is as follows. Four or 
five years ago, a Chinese farmer, while working at the foot of a bank of 
earth about six meters high, dug out what he considered to be a pair of 
“dragon’s eggs.” One was broken, the other entire, and, presuming 
the latter to have some commercial value, he took it with him to Kal- 
gan, and disposed of it to Rev. William P. Sprague, one of the American 
Board missionaries residing there. Rev. James H. Roberts, a brother 
missionary who has also spent many years in China, was present when 
the egg was sold, and on revisiting this country last spring brought the 
specimen with him on behalf of Mr. Sprague, to be offered for sale 
to some scientific institution. Eventually it was purchased for the 
Museum of Comparative Zodlogy, where it is now deposited. 
The Chinese workman who found the egg was well known to the 
servants of the missionaries as a man living in Yao Kuan Chuang. This 
is a small village in the district of Hsi Ning, about fifty miles south- 
southwest from Kalgan by road, but somewhat nearer in a straight line, as 
that region is very mountainous. Subsequently Mr. Sprague visited the 
1 The circumstance of two eggs being found together accords well with Owen’s 
Suggestion that the oviposition of the moa was probably in pairs. Cf. Extinct 
Wingless Birds of New: Zealand, Vol. I. p. 320, 1879. 
