Ovoid egg. Ellipsoid egg. Ostrich egg. ft. in. li. ft. in. li. ft. in. li. Longer circumference 2 10 9 2 9 6 1 6 0 Shorter circumference 2 4 3 2 5 6 1 4 6 Extreme length 1 0 8 1 0 5 0 6 4 M. Geoffroy St Hilaire estimates the larger of the two to contain 10-1/8 quarts, or the contents of nearly six eggs of the Ostrich, or sixteen of the Cassowary, or a hundred and forty-eight of the Hen, or fifty thousand of the Humming bird.[18] The fragments of bone indicated a bird of the same natural affinities as the New Zealand colossi, and of dimensions not widely remote from theirs. Professor Owen thinks that it did not exceed in height or size _Dinornis giganteus_, and that there is a probability that it was slightly smaller. The Madagascar bird has been named _Æpyornis maximus_. The fragments of the egg of the New Zealand bird (still uncertain as to the species to which it is to be referred) shew that the shell was absolutely thinner, and therefore relatively _much_ thinner than that of the Ostrich's egg; the air-pores, too, have a different form, being linear, instead of round, and the surface is smoother. In these qualities, the New Zealand egg resembles that of the _Apteryx_; in the thickness and roughness of the egg of _Æpyornis_ there is more similarity to those of the Ostrich and Cassowary. The colour of the Madagascar egg is a dull greyish yellow; but it is possible that this may be derived from the soil in which it has long been imbedded. The fragments of the New Zealand egg are white, like the eggs of the _Apteryx_ and Ostrich: those of the Emu and Cassowary are light green. The willing fancy suggests the possibility that, in an island of such immensity as Madagascar, possessing lofty mountain-ranges, covered with the most magnificent forests, where civilised man has only yet touched one or two spots on the seaward borders, but where these slight explorations have educed so many wondrous animals, so many strange forms of vegetable life, the noble _Æpyornis_ may yet be stalking with giant stride along the fern-fringed hill-sides, or through the steaming thickets; though in the more contracted area of New Zealand its equally ponderous cousins, the _Dinornis_ and the _Palapteryx_, may have sunk beneath the persevering persecutions of man. Yet another item of evidence bearing on the recent if not present existence of these great fowls has recently come to light:--the most interesting discovery that one of the genera whose fossil remains had been found associated with theirs is really extant in New Zealand. I refer to the _Notornis_. At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London, held on the 13th November 1850, Dr Mantell made the following communication relative to this discovery:--