t of the other egg, being
more than eight inches. The third egg, although broken, has been very
useful to science, by displaying the thickness of the shell, which is
about one-tenth of an inch.

The bones, of which I have received the casts, are three in number,
and of great interest. One of them is a characteristic fragment of the
upper part of a fibula; the other two, still more interesting, as
enabling us to determine the class and genus of the animal to which
they belong, exhibit the extremities of the right and left
tarso-metatarsal bones. The former is somewhat broken; the latter is
nearly perfect, and exhibits the triple division of the inferior
extremity of the bone into the three trochleae or pulley-shaped
processes of the struthious birds. It might be mistaken for a bone of
the great Dinornis, but is distinguished from this by the flatness of
the portion above the trochleae. Still less is it one of the bones of
the ostrich, its three pulleys being separated from each other by
distinct intervals; whereas the pulleys of the ostrich have only one
such separation, constituting two distinct eminences.

M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire considered himself justified, from these and
other facts, in deciding this bone to belong to a bird of a new genus,
to which he gives the name of EPYORNIS, from _aipys_, _high_,
_tall_, and _ornis_, _bird_; and, as probably it is a specimen of the
largest animal of the family, he affixes the specific name of
_maximus_.

The size of this bird, inferred from that of its egg, would be vastly
superior to that of the ostrich. But if we notice the comparative size
of the trochleated extremity of the tarso-metatarsal bone, we shall
see that its height would be greatly exaggerated by adopting such a
basis for its establishment; in fact, it would not probably exceed a
height double that of the ostrich. And, though it must have been
superior to that of the Dinornis maximus of Prof. Owen, it might
perhaps excel it only by the difference of two or three feet. A bird
of twelve or thirteen feet in height would, however, if we stood in
its presence, appear enormous, and must have greatly astonished and
terrified the natives of Madagascar. Whether it now exists is
uncertain, as it may possibly have a habitation in the wild recesses
of the island, which have never yet been visited by any European
traveller.

The credit of most of the observations and discoveries relating to
this remarkable bird is attrib