234 THE UNIVERSE. 



sparrow, and the smallest hardly surpasses in size a humble- 

 bee. Hence, to the humming-birds, as they are commonly 

 called, each speck of creation is a world. A simple leaf 

 suffices for the gambols of a whole family ; a flower is the 

 perfumed throne on which the nuptials are accomplished, 

 and the petals of its corolla spread out to form a velvet 

 canopy which hides their chaste loves. 



Were we to compare the size of different birds, we should 

 arrive at wonderful results. Lacepede, who doubtless could 

 not boast of being as exact as Archimedes, calculated that 

 it would require a thousand millions of shrew-mice to equal 

 a whale in weight. If that were true, we should also have 

 to pile up some millions of humming-birds to weigh against 

 the heavy ostrich. 



We have just spoken of the ostrich, but it again is only a 

 bird of insignificant size compared with two ornithological 

 marvels, the recent discovery of which we owe to the illus- 

 trious zoologists Professor Owen and Isidore Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire. 



One of them, the gigantic Dinornis of New Zealand, a 

 part of the skeleton of which is in the Museum of the Lon- 

 don College of Surgeons, was eighteen feet high. The bone 

 of a man's leg is only a slender spindle compared to that of 

 this colossal bird. 



The disappearance of this huge bird dates from no very 

 distant epoch, and everything attests that the first inhab- 

 itants of New Zealand were perfectly acquainted with it. 

 The ancient legends of the island tell us that at the time 

 of its discovery it was full of birds of appalling size. There 

 are also ancient poems there, in which the father teaches 



