Miscellanea. 189 
the gigantic eggs which are occasionally found in their island. We 
take this statement from an interesting letter, in which M. Leéper- 
vanche Méziére, a well-informed naturalist of the Isle of Reunion, 
kindly informed the Museum of Natural History of the discovery of 
the eggs of A'pyornis, immediately on its having been made.* 
It is scarcely necessary to add, that the tradition which we have 
just mentioned would attribute to the #pyornis habits which are 
far from having belonged to it: it is a fable quite similar to that 
which exists in New Zealand on the subject of the Moa, and 
which has no more serious foundation. The Apyornis, like the 
Dinornis, was a Rudipen, and that species, of which popular 
belief has made a gigantic and terrible bird of prey, like to the 
Roc or Rue of the Kastern tales,f had neither talons, nor wings 
adapted for flying, and must have fed peaceably on vegetable 
substances. 
DEScRIPLIONS OF SOME NEW GENERA AND SPECIES OF SPATANGIDE 
IN tHE British Musrum. By J. E. Gray, Esq., F.BS., P.B.S., 
&e. 
[Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist, February 1851.] 
Tue following genera and species do not appear to be included 
in’ M. Agassiz and Desor’s “ Catalogue Raisonne.” They will be 
figured in the Catalogue of the E'chinide in the British Museum. 
Spatangus Regine. Purple ? subcordate; back convex, larger 
dorsal tubercles few and far apart, scattered, ambulacral petals 
broad. 
Hab. Malta. 
This species is very like S. purpureus, but the back is higher, 
more convex, and there are not half the number of dorsal tubercles 
found in that species. It was collected by Miss Emilie Attersoll, 
* This new letter informs us, positively, that one of the eggs at least comes 
from the same bed as the osseous fragments. 
+ The fables respecting the Roc may not indeed be unconnected with these 
discoveries of gigantic eggs, made no doubt from time to time in the island of 
Madagascar, and with the belief to which they have given rise among the 
natives. But it would be going too far to make of the Roc, with Mr. Strick- 
land, a Madagascan bird, which we might then be induced to refer completely 
to the pyornis. Mr. Strickland has misunderstood Marco Polo, the only 
authority whom he has here cited. Marco Polo, in his celebrated account 
(book iii. chap. 40), speaks of the Roc immediately after having treated of 
Madagascar, but not as belonging to that island. Quite the contrary, he makes 
it an inhabitant of quelques autres isles oultre Madagascar sur la coste du Midy, 
French edit. of 1556, p. 115); aliarum insularum ultra Madaigascar ( Latin edit. 
of 1671, p. 157). 
[I can only say that in Marsden’s edition of Marco Polo (4to. London, 1818, 
p. 707), I read as follows:—‘* The people of the island (viz. Madagascar ) 
report that at a certain season of the year, an extraordinary kind of bird, which 
they call a rukh, makes its appearance from the southern region ;”” &c. Polo 
states that the ‘‘other numerous islands lying further south” were unfrequented 
by ships, and his account of the Roc unquestionably refers to Madagascar.— 
H. E. Srricktanp, ] 
