70 BOMBAY DUCKS 



animals which have found this little earth too small for 

 them ; to the mighty flying reptiles the expanse of 

 whose leathery wings measured thirty feet, and which, 

 had they lived in these days, would have been capable 

 of flying off" with a bullock ; to the great sloth-like 

 creatures — megatherium, glyptodon, and mylodon — 

 whose height was three times that of a tall man and 

 twice that of the average elephant ; to the huge hairy 

 mammoths ; to the giant mastodons, whose tusks were 

 twelve feet in length ; to the enormous lizards which 

 were large enough to swallow a sheep at a gulp ; to the 

 moa, once " the lord of the great Polynesian islands of 

 New Zealand." 



When we contemplate such extinct monsters which 

 must be numbered among the unfit, the words " sur- 

 vival of the fittest " acquire a new significance. 



