An Egg That Holds Two Gallons

1895

One of the most interesting specimens in the National museum at Washington is a cast of an egg of most gigantic size, which was found in a guana bed on the island of Madagascar about 25 years ago. The shell of this egg will hold almost exactly two gallons of liquid, which would make its capacity equal to 148 average sized eggs laid by the common barnyard fowl. The bird which laid this mammoth egg is now extinct and has been for probably 200 years. To the scientist — who knows it by its bones and eggs — it is known as the epiornis, and its restored skeletons prove it to have been a bird at least 12 feet in height. Arab sailors who visited Madagascar centuries ago, when the epiornis was still living, are believed to have brought back the stories concerning it which finally developed into the fabulous narratives of the roc. — St. Louis Republic.


Simple

A woman living in the north of England, not being able to tell the time by the clock, was asked one day by a friend how she knew when it was time to get her husband's dinner ready. She answered, "When the big finger points to the pantry door and the little finger to Mrs. X.'s (meaning her next door neighbor), then I know." — London Tit-Bits.


Trivia

Cleopatra is said to have spoken all the languages used by her subjects, together with Latin and Greek. Altogether she understood 11 or 12.

Spelt is a favorite grain in south Germany and Switzerland.