SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
133 
Rinderpest in the French Zoological Gardens. — The Times (December 9), 
quoting the Echo Agricole , states that the cattle plague is spreading among 
the animals of the Zoological Gardens of the Bois de Boulogne. It has 
attacked the goats, four of which were killed on Tuesday, making eighteen 
deaths among the animals since the arrival of some gazelles from London. 
Fortunately the disease has not been observed outside that establishment, 
and the greatest precautions are taken to prevent it from spreading. All 
animals suspected of being mfected are immediately killed. 
The Moals Egg. — Since our last issue a splendid specimen of the egg of 
the Dinornis has been exhibited in this country, put up to auction, and 
“ bought in ” by the proprietors for £125. Some interesting details con- 
cerning the history of gigantic bird’s eggs have been supplied by a contem- 
sporary, and we quote them for our readers : — 
In 1854, M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy 
some eggs of the Epyornis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The 
larger of these was 12T inches long, and 11 ‘8 inches wide ; the smaller one 
was slightly less than this. The Museum d’Histoire Naturelle at Paris also 
contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put up for 
sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the shorter 7 inches 
In the discussion which followed the reading of M. de St. Hilaire’s paper 
M. Yalenciennes stated it was quite impossible to judge of the size of a 
bird by the size of its egg, and gave several instances in point. Mr. Strick- 
land, in some “Notices of the Dodo and its Kindred,” published in the 
Annals of Natural History, for November, 1849, says that in the previous 
year a Mr. Dumarele, a highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon 
saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous egg, which held “ thirteen uhne 
quart bottles of fluid.” The natives stated that the egg was found in the 
jungle, and “ observed that such eggs were very, very rarely met with.” Mr. 
Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so 
Allowing a pint and a half to each of the so-called “ quarts,” the egg would 
hold 19A pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire held 17-f pints, 
as he himself proved. The difference is not so very great. A word or two 
about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook found, on an island 
near the north-east coast of New Holland, a nest “ of a most enormous size. 
It was built with sticks upon the gronnd, and was no less than six and 
twenty feet in circumference, and two feet eight inches high.” — (Kerr’s 
Collection of Voyages and Travels, xiii. 318.) Captain Flinders found 
two similar nests on the south coasts of New Holland, in King George’s Bay. 
In his “ Yoyage, &c.,” London, 1818, he says, “ They were built upon the 
ground, from which they rose above two feet, and were of vast circumference 
and great interior capacity ; the branches of trees and other matter of 
which each nest was composed being enough to fill a cart.- — Yide The Reader, 
Dec. 2. 
The Muscular Force of Insects. — At the meeting of the Eoyal Society of 
Brussels, held on the 4th of November, a report was read on M. Plateau’s 
memoir on the above subject. The author, by means of very ingenious 
experiments, attempts to show that the muscular force of insects compared 
with that of the vertebrates is enormous. The common cockchafer is capable 
of exerting a tractile force equivalent to fourteen times the weight of his 
