434 C. R. Eastman — Another Egg of Strut hioUthiis. 



scientific knowledge with marked administrative ability with which 

 he had carried through his difficult task. Under his direction the 

 Natural History Collections have been so arranged that no one can 

 examine them without admiration. To Sir William Flower, as 

 a worthy successor of Sir Richard Owen,' will attach the honour of 

 having organized a museum which now occupies a prominent 

 position among all the museums of the world. For these services 

 the Trustees offer their hearty thanks and sincere good wishes on 

 his retirement." 



The new Director — Professor E, Eay Lankester, M.A., LL.D., 

 V.P.E.S., Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy, etc., Fellow 

 of Merton and Hon. Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, born 1847, 

 the eldest son of the late Dr. Edwin Lankester — occupies a most 

 distinguished position as a naturalist and zoologist, and carries with 

 him the support of a large majority of the leading men of science 

 throughout the country. He will doubtless ably achieve the com- 

 pletion of the arrangement of the zoological collections which fall 

 immediately under his charge as Keeper, in addition to the office of 

 Director of the whole Museum. He is to be congratulated upon 

 succeeding such eminent predecessors as Owen and Flower, whose 

 honourable careers have added lustre to the post upon which he will 

 enter to-day with the good wishes of all his scientific friends. 



II — Discovery of a second Specimen op the Fossil Egg of 



Struthioliteus. 



By C. R. Eastman, Esq., 



Of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass., F.S.A. 



(PLATE XVII.) 



IN the year 1857, or thereabouts, a remarkable fossil egg was 

 discovered in the Government of Cherson, in South Russia. 

 The circumstances of its being brought to light were peculiar, and 

 its subsequent history is instructive enough to repay a brief recapitu- 

 lation, which we give as follows. 



During a freshet, a stream occupying an old watercourse excavated 

 a recess below a milldam not far from Malinowka, in the Chersonesus. 

 Some peasants happening to pass along at the time observed floating 

 on the surface of the pool an egg-shaped object, which they im- 

 mediately captured. Happily their curiosity as to its nature was so 

 far tempered by mercenary instincts that they did not break it, and 

 after several exchanges of ownership it was finally offered for sale 

 by a man named Dobrowolsky to various scientific institutions of 

 Russia for the sum of one thousand roubles. In the course of time 

 it was submitted to Professor Kessler, of Kiev, for examination ; 

 and some years later to Professor Alexander Brandt, of Charkow, 

 who obtained permission to take a plaster cast of the specimen, 

 and also prepared a description of it, which attracted considerable 

 attention.' The owner of the egg, however, although disappointed 



1 Bull, de I'Acad. Imp. des Sci. St. Petersburg, vol. xviii (1873), pp. 158-161. 

 Translated in Ibis [3], vol. iv (1874), pp. 4-7. 



