io THE STORY OF THE BIRDS 



discovered in the English Fens ; others have 

 disappeared from scenes which their remains 

 tell us they once occupied ; as for instance the 

 Snowy Owl and the Capercailzie from Devon- 

 shire, bones of which have been found in that 

 wonderful necropolis of our ancient fauna, Kent's 

 cavern, near Torquay. 



Two other points seem specially worthy of a 

 brief notice before we leave this portion of the 

 subject. The first relates to the gigantic birds 

 of the early Tertiary Period. There can be no 

 doubt that some at least of these ponderous 

 avine types managed to survive in one or two 

 favourable spots until quite recent times and 

 long after their contemporaries had vanished 

 from the earth. The two most famous sanctu- 

 aries of these archaic birds are the long and 

 completely isolated areas of New Zealand and 

 Madagascar. Among these curious birds, re- 

 mains of which have been discovered in quite 

 recent deposits (notably near ancient camping 

 places of the aborigines, in caves, sand drifts 

 and swamps) in New Zealand, may be men- 

 tioned the Moas (Dinornis), the huge Raptorial 

 bird Harpagornis, and a monster Goose. All 

 these birds were flightless. It is round the 

 Moas that most interest gathers, not only 



