IX 



FEATHERED GIANTS 



"There were giants in the earth in those days." 



Nearly every group of animals has its giants, its 

 species which tower above their fellows as Goliath of 

 Gath stood head and shoulders above the Philistine 

 hosts; and while some of these are giants only in com- 

 parison with their fellows, belonging to families whose 

 members are short of stature, others are sufficiently 

 great to be called giants under any circumstances. 

 Some of these giants live to-day, some have but recently 

 passed away, and some ceased to be long ages before 

 man trod this earth. The most gigantic of mammals 

 the whales still survive, and the elephant of to-day 

 suffers but little in comparison with the mammoth of 

 yesterday; the monstrous Dinosaurs, greatest of all 

 reptiles greatest, in fact, of all animals that have 

 walked the earth flourished thousands upon thou- 

 sands of years ago. As for birds, some of the giants 

 among them are still living, some existed long geologic 

 periods ago, and a few have so recently vanished from 

 the scene that their memory still lingers amid the haze of 

 tradition. The best known among these, as well as the 

 most recent in point of time, are the Moas of New 

 Zealand, first brought to notice by the Rev. W. Colenso, 

 later on Bishop of New Zealand, one of the many mis- 

 sionaries to whom Science is under obligations. Early 

 in 1838, Bishop Colenso, while on a missionary visit 

 to the East Cape region, heard from the natives of 

 Waiapu tales of a monstrous bird, called Moa, having 

 the head of a man, that inhabited the mountain-side 

 some eighty miles away. This mighty bird, the last of 

 his race, was said to be attended by two equally huge 



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