6 
On a large Fossil Egg from Cher son. 
The colour of the egg is a yellowish brown, which is not, 
however, equally spread over the whole surface, but in patches 
brighter here and darker there, and hardly represents the ori¬ 
ginal colour. Still less are numbers of blackish dendritic 
spots irregularly spread over the egg to be reconciled with 
its original colour. These are certainly either really den¬ 
dritic, or the remnants of a parasitic vegetation which is often 
met with in fossil remains. 
Of the thickness of the egg-shell nothing definite can be 
ascertained, since the egg is quite intact, except as re¬ 
gards two cracks, of a hair’s breadth, said to have resulted 
from an attempt to ascertain the contents. In one place 
a hardly perceptible splinter has been taken off; but the 
fracture is so thin that it does not extend through the 
thickness of the shell, and only shows its hard enamel-like 
substance. 
The perfect state of the egg when found proves that it 
must be empty, and not filled with mineral substance. 
This is the cause of its weighing so little as to have been 
swimming in the river when discovered. According to 
Herr Dobrowolsky’s information it weighs about 200 Rus¬ 
sian pounds. 
According to Eichwald*, fossil remains of birds are very 
scarce in Russia, although v. Nordmann has discovered some 
in a tertiary loam near Odessaf (that is, not far from where 
this egg was found). But as to what genera these bones be¬ 
long to we find no information recorded. 
The above-described form of this egg-shell, as well as 
its dimensions, lead us first to think of a Struthious bird 
which in size must have exceeded the Ostrich. This, how¬ 
ever, is not the first gigantic bird recorded of the Tertiary 
epoch of Europe, since fifty years ago remains of such a bird 
were found in our quarter of the globe—namely, those of Gas - 
tornis parisiensis, of the Eocene of Meudon, near Paris, allied 
to the Swimmers and Waders. 
* Lethsea Rossica, Stuttgardt, Bd. iii. 1853, p. 325. 
t “ Ub. d. Entdeckung reiclihaltiger Lager von fossilen Enochen in Siid- 
Russland,” Jubilseum semiseculare Fischeri de W. (foL Moscau, 1847), p. 9. 
