24 



THE OOLOGIST. 



very greatest strength: had it been other 

 wise 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. There- 

 fore, this last-found egg may be many 

 hundred years old, but taking it at two 

 hundred years, that is a long time for au 

 egg to remain in clay. In my specimen 

 some heavy substance rattles when shaken, 

 and I have been asked if it contains embryo 

 — but I do not think this likely: perhaps it 

 may have in it one o 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 concretions 

 of shell, he gives the* following: 'I rind 

 Barrow says, these are pale yellow, in one 

 egg we found nine, in another twelve.' 

 Thunberg says: 'a stone is sometimes found, 

 hard, white, flat, and smooth, about the 

 size of a bean, they are sometime, cut and 

 made into bottons.' 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 speci- 

 men at present in the most perfect con- 

 dition, and as regards England, unique. 

 These concretions nave nothing to do with 

 'the gizzard stones' swallowed by birds for 

 the purpose of increasing the triturative 

 power. Mr. Butler says, p. 139, on the 

 Moa: 'Little heaps of their gizzard stones 

 are constantly found ; they consist of smooth 

 and polished flints and cornelians, with 

 sometimes quartz— the bird generally se- 

 lected rather pretty stones' (how like the 

 Ostrich taste this is) ; 'I do not remember 

 finding a single sandstone; these heaps are 

 easily distinguished, and are very common. ' 

 Livingstone says, ch. vii. p. 154: 'the food 

 of the Ostrich consists of pods and seeds of 

 leguminous plants, with leaves of various 

 kinds ; and as they are often dry, he picks 

 up a great quantity of pebbles, many of 

 which are as large as marbles. ' 



If the iEpyornis maximus was a layer of 

 one egg, I should imagine more would 



hardly be found, though this would not 

 absolutely make it so Very scarce, for 

 Darwin in his Origin of Species, p. 66, says, 

 'the Fulmar Petrel, Procellaria glacialis, 

 lays but one egg, yet it is believed to be the 

 most numerous bird in the world.' Should 

 it, on the contrary, have had as many as 

 the Ostrich, Emeu, and Ehea of South 

 America, our chances musl of course be im- 

 proved: " I incline to the latter opinion. 



The nests of the Ehea, according to 

 Darwin, contain between twenty and thirty 

 eggs each, laid, however, by several females. 

 Perhaps the Madagascar bird, which was 

 probably polygamous, had the habit of 

 scattering eggs all over the country, as does 

 the Ehea and also the Ostrich. Darwins 

 says of the former: 'in the months of 

 September 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 J3pyornis 

 maximus may yet be discovered, particular- 

 ly as the immense strength of the shell 

 appears to defy time. But bones are our 

 chief desiderata: these will probably turn 

 up in some bog or banks of a river. Kheas 

 were seen, by Mr. Darwin, swimming across 

 the Santa Cruz river where it was four 

 hundred yards wide, with a rapid stream. 

 Sturt came upon two Emeus in the same 

 way in the Murrurbridgee in Australia, and 

 one of the great eggs was at least washed 

 out by a stream. Bones of the New 

 Zealand Giant were found in a morass, and 

 in such a situation I should search in Mad- 

 agascar. 



It is strange that so colossal a creature 

 could have lived in modern days arjd yet 

 escape notice. M. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 

 quoting Mr. Strickland (Avvals of Natural 

 History, No. 23, Nov. 1849, 338) states 

 that M. Dumarele, a French merchant, 

 sent an account of an enormous egg, in 

 1848, to M. Joliff, surgeon of the Geyser. 

 This was seen by him in Madagascar at 

 Port Leven, but he could not buy it of the 

 natives, as it belonged to a chief of the 

 Sakalawas tribe, and on account of its raritv 



