ISSUED IN BEHALF OF THE SCIENCE WHICH IT ADVOCATES. 



Volume III, 



JUNE, 1877. 



Number 4. 



Fossil Eggs and Nests. 



1 UITE an interest attaches to the geo- 

 logical remains of birds' eggs and 

 nests, and these are by no means un- 

 common in North America, especially in 

 the region of the north-western part of the 

 United Sttites. The coasts of California 

 and Washington Territory afford excellent 

 opportunities for obtaining these specimens, 

 which, though not properly belonging to an 

 oological collection, will often prove worthy 

 of attentive study in this connection. 



In some places in California many eggs 

 have been found bedded in groups, evident- 

 ly once sets, completely fossilized and im- 

 bedded in the earth, in connection with pet- 

 rified rubbish. When unearthed, many of 

 these are inseparably attached to each oth- 

 er and the surrounding mineral substance, 

 and some, instead of being perfect in form, 

 are bent and dented into many shapes, 

 though generally perfectly sound in the 

 shell. The circumstance of finding these 

 eggs with the shells of invertebrates and 

 fossilized wood, induce many to suppose 

 that they formed a part of the great geolog- 

 ical shifts of many ages ago. Though of 

 imknown age, some of the shells are in 

 such a perfect state of preservation that the 

 chalky shell of the Pelican and Cormorant, 

 or kindred soecies can be distinguished from 



the smoother and thinner shells of the Gulls 

 and Terns. In many cases, pieces of rock 

 had made their way through the softer earth 

 and, gradually pressing against the shell, 

 had bent it nearly flat or into other odd 

 shapes, without fracturing it. 



The size of these fossil eggs varies from 

 that of a Pigeon or smaller upward. A 

 specimen presented us, supposed to be the 

 egg of a Gull, must originally have been 

 about the size of a small goose-egg. There 

 is, of course, a vast field for investigation 

 of these pre-historic (they probably are) 

 birds, and we shall possibly find that at 

 some future time enormous eggs will be 

 unearthed. Whether any of these fossil 

 eggs preserve their markings, is a point we 

 shall look for with some interest, though, 

 like most other geological remains, the prob- 

 ability is that they do not. 



The presence of numerous small animals, 

 snails, worms and the like in the petrified 

 earth about, and a few small holes in some 

 of the shells, might indicate that the con- 

 tents of the eggs had been thus disposed of, 

 for, with the exception of occasional pro- 

 tuberances on the inside of the shell, there 

 is, in at least many specimens, nothing to 

 show that the contents had remained until 

 petrifaction had commenced. What ap- 

 pears to be petrified moss partially sur- 

 rounds the shells of some specimens, indi- 

 cating that this substance was used as a 



