4 
Dr. A. Brandt on a large Fossil Egg 
II .—On a large Fossil Egg from the neighbourhood of Cher son. 
By Dr. Alexander Brandt*. 
A short time since, Herr E. Dobrowolsky offered to sell to me 
for the zoological museum of the Academy an apparently very 
remarkable egg. As regards its purchase the Direction of the 
museum could do nothing, since the sum asked (1000 roubles) 
was by no means suitable to the very moderate means of the 
museum. Herr Dobrowolsky was nevertheless so good as 
not only to assist me in describing the egg by permitting me 
to make an accurate examination of it and by giving me the 
necessary particulars as to its discovery, but also to allow 
me to have a plaster cast prepared of it. 
The egg is stated to have been found, at least fifteen 
years ago, at Malinowka, in the province and district of 
Cherson, in an ancient watercourse or so-called “ balka.” In 
a small stream traversing the old watercourse below a wear, 
the spring floods falling over the latter washed out a channel, 
from the bottom of which the egg appeared. Being observed 
by some peasants it was taken up and given to Hr. N. S. T. Ma- 
linowsky, an uncle of our informant. The soil from which the 
egg came was described as a reddish-brown frangible loam, 
beneath which lay crystalline gypsum. The egg is at pre¬ 
sent in the possession of Hr. Ssemen Dobrowolsky, the 
father of my informant, a landed proprietor in the province 
of Cherson. 
I now add a short description of this apparently remark¬ 
able egg. 
The form of the egg is so nearly that of a regular ellipse, 
that it is difficult to tell the big end from the little. Yet we 
may assume the end recognizable by its somewhat less smooth 
shell to be the big end—a conclusion supported by the well- 
known ornithologist Herr W. Meves, in whose company I 
had the pleasure of examining the egg, inasmuch as he has 
frequently noticed that in birds' eggs generally the big end 
* Read before the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg on 
the 5th of September 1872, and translated from the ‘Bulletin,’ vol. xviii. 
no. 2, p. 158, et seg.~~ P.L.S. 
