The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-27
THE ROOFS EGG LEGEND.
Founded on the Thirteen-Inch Egg of
the Aepyornis.
From the london Daily New

CIOu4 bAO LOhOOA OuAAJ 4NOWSs
There has lately been brought to Eng
land another egg of the epyornis, the
gigantic long-lost bird of Madagascar.
The egg is gigantic, too, for it is equal in
capacity to no fewer then six ostrich eggs.
Legends have been current in all ages of
some monstrous fowl that haunted the
eastern seas, and when the first of these
great eggs was seen and handled by Eu-
ropeans, it was believed that here at last
was proof of the existence, in the past, if
not in the present, of a bird as vast as
that which made so light of Sinbad.
1t is not twenty years since an Italian
naturalist, after careful study of such
bones as had then been found, still held
to the belief that the 9pyornis was
vulture, and that, in fact, it was nothing
less than the roc of the Arabian Nights.
But the more generally received opinion
is that it was running bird, wingless
probably, and much like the ostrich in
build and bulk
1t must not be forgotten that the dimen-
sions of an egg cannot be relied on to give
us true IDEA of the bird that laid it. A
tall ostrich is or 8 feet high, and pro-
duces an egg 6 inches long. The egg of
the largest species of apteryx, the
strange, wingless bird of New Zealand, is
not much less-nearly inches in length
VINO Vic D1iQ 1bSbll Is ONLY s1GGG nl2n,
or not more than fourth the hight of
the ostrich. The gigantic moa, whose
toe bones almost rival those of the ele-
plant, stood 10 or 10 feet high, yet its
egg was no more than 81 inches in
length.
Owen was of opinion, after examining
such scanty remains as were then availa-
BILE, that the aepyornis was not, after all,
so very colossal, certainly less than the
md no .lnszrN ,,NF - fIan
ostrich. Tall bird" is the translation of
its name, as st. Hilaire christenedit and
having regard to the original Greek, there
can be no doubt that aeypornis is more
correct than epi0rniS. The eggs were
first seen in the hands of natives, who
were using them for water buckets OF
the bird itself they had no knowledge,
and although number of eggs nave been
met with, they are always found buried,
or washed out of the earth by heavy
rains. There does not appear TO be among
the Malagasy people even tradition of
lost gigantic bird, as there is in New Zea-
land about the moa.
There are two aepyornis eggs in Paris,
measuring 10 inches by 8, and - inches
by 10. The one now in London is about
the same size, and is described as being
3S18 inches in its longest circumference.
Even this does not convey much idea of
be best appreciated by cutting an oval in
paper 10 inches in length and 9 inches
across.
This specimen was found floating in the
sea OFF the coast of Madagascar, and was
probably disinterred from the sandhills
ny storm. 1t is in the south of the
island, especially between Cape St.
Mary and Machikova, that all the known
nnds have occurred. One egg was found
while some men were sinking the shaft of
an iron mine, at a depth of 40 feet below
tne surface. This, however, was in the
clay, and in every case the shell has been
met with in recent geologic formation.
The surface of an aepyornis egg is
graduated, like that of one species of
ostrich, and the substance of the shell is
remarkably strong. Its color is creamy
white. 1t is thought that the bird may
perhaps have existed during our era, but
II has, at any rate, been lost for nearly
1000 years. The moa, on the other hand,
disappeared no longer ago thaa the great
aux, for in 1874 an old Maori who claimed
10 have seen Capt Cook, declared that
ne himself had seen the huge, night
wandering bird. 1t was believed then
that 1t still existed in the South Island,
and stories were current of two old set
tiers who had eaten its flesh. The
IInoa was killed off by native moa
hunters, and it is chiefly from the
Hidden middens-the heaps of refuse they
nave left-that its remains are recovered.
AS much as seven tons of moa bones have
oeen found in one swamp; while, from
orler soil, such as the floors of caves,
even some of its red feathers have been
brought to light, and at least one perfect
egg.
An egg shell seems frail thing to last
80 long and under such conditions. Yet
not only have guillemots' eggs been
uredged up unbroken from the bottom of
tne sea, but the shells of hens eggs, put
one inside another in neat pile, were
FOUND few years since buried in Roman
villa, together with coins, which proved
pretty well that the room had been un-
touched for nearly / 400 years.
In The islands near Madagascar there
uwelt other strange fowl that, like the
&aepyornis, have disappeared forever.
mere Is nothing at all left of the solitaire
OF Rodriguez, bird that old uavigators
say weighed nearly half a hundred
weight. 1t is exactly two centuries since
tne dodo was last seen in Mauritius, the
strange fowl whose body is round and
eXtreame fat; her slow pace begets that
CCorpulencie; few of them weigh less than
nIty pounds; better to the eye than to the
stomach" The longer the flesh was
cooked, in fact, the worse it was to eat.
no one possesses a dodo's egg No one
even knows what it was like. Our only
Information on the point is the somewhat
AneAact description given by a French