THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH'S VOYAGE.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3209, 29 October 1867, Page 4

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH'S VOYAGE.

In connection with this subject the South Australian Advertiser reports: — "A meeti-g of the Port Adelaide Reception Commi'tee was held on Satuiday, the 14th September, in the Town Hall. It wa3 resolved — 'That as the sub-committee appointed by the general committee would neither alter their plans with respect to the proposed landing of his Royal Highness at Glenelg instead of at Port Adelaiie, nor submit their programme to the approval of the the general committee, an appeal be made to his Excellency the Governor, Sir Dominick Daly, by a deputation, the deputation to submit for his Excellency's consideration the following letter received by the committee from Commodore Sir Rowley Lambert, C.8., as evidence in their favour from an impartial and competent authority j and to request that preparations for the landing of vis Royal Highness may be made at Port Adelaide, and the more so because, should the weather be rough on the arrival of his Royal Highness, the landiug would have to take place at Port Adelaide, all other preperations and considerations to the contiary notwiths anding.' Copy of letter referred to : — 'H M.s. 'Challenger,' at Sydney, 7th September, 1867.— Sir, I beg to acknowledge the receipt of a letter d<ited 28th ultimo, signed by yourself and two other gentlemen of the committee for receiving H.RH. the Duke of Edinburgh on his arrival in South Australia, and to thank you for the papers you f»ent me. It appears to me that you have strong reasons on your bide for wishing his Royal Highne <s to land at Port Adelaide in place of Grlenelg : but, as I luve already informeJ you, it not being my intention to be preseut myself, J shall not iuterfere with his Royal Highncs's movements. — I have the honour to be, &c , Rowley Lambert, Commodore, Senior Officer. To J.M. Sinclair, Esq., Porfc Adelaide.' "The Mauritius Gazelteot the 17th August says :— " The colony has been pleasurably excited by the reiterated stitemen^ published in the English and Cape newspapers, that it is possible his Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh will visit Mauritius on his voyace from the Cape to Australia. The knowledge of this island not being named in the circular addressed to the several Colonial Governors as being one of the places at which it was arranged H.R.H. would laud, has greatly damped the ardent hopes of the population, and it has been suggested that his Excell«ncy the Governor should, m the name of the community, respectfully invite H.R. H. not to pass by Mauritius in his t-mr round the world. It is of course thoroughly well understood that itwas only through the circumstance of it 3 being known that an epidemic rajed here at the date oftbe departure of H.R.H. from England which led to the omission of Mauritius from his itinerary ; and it is hoped, as he must now be better informed as to the character of the fever which desolated us, and as it has alrrost disappeared from the colony, and consequently there would beno danger in visiting our island, that H.R. S. will concent to honour us with a short atay. The community is of one mind in its desire to offer H.R.H. a hearty and loyal reception, and one consonant with his illustrious de-cent and personal worth. The Siilor-son of the good Queen Victoria would meet with an enthusiastic welcbme, and the Mauritians would greatly regret being denied the opportunity of evincing their unchangeable loyalty to the British Government and their devotion to the Royal House."

Eoc's Eggs. —In 1854, M. Geoffroy de St. Hilaire exhibited to the French Academy some eggs of the Epyoruis, a bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. The larger of these was 12 1 inches long, and 11 8 inches wide. The smaller one was slightly less than this. The Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at Paris also contains two eggs, both of which are larger than the one recently put up for sale, the longer axis of which measures 10 inches, and the shorter 7 inches. In the discussion which followed the reading of M. de St. Bilaire's paper, M. Valenciennes stated it was quite impossible to judge of the size of a bird by the size of its egg, and gave several instances in point. Mr. Strickland, in some " Notices of the Dodo and its Kindred," published in the "Annals of Natural History" for November, 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a highly respectable French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous egg which held "thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid." The natives stated that the egg was found in the jungle, and "observed that such eggs were very, very rarely met with." Mr. Strickland appears to doubt this, but there seems no reason to do so. Allowing a pint and a-half to eaoh of the so-called "quarts," the egg would 19£ pints. Now, the larger egg exhibited by St. Hilaire held 17£ pints, as he himself proved. The difference is not so very great. A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, * nest "of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and two feet eight inches high. (Kerrs " Collection of Voyages and Travels, xvi., 318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nest?, on the south coast of New Holland, in King George a Bay. In his «Voj»ge," &c, London, 1818, he says, " They were built upon the ground, from which they rose above two feet, *nd were of vast circumference »nd great interior capacity; the branches of trees, and other matter of which each nest wt*s composed, being enough to, fill «, oa.rtj," .