The Story of the Rocks 135 



But whatever may have been the development of feathers 

 and origin of flight in birds we find in Archaeopteryx one of 

 the best "links" between two great groups anywhere to be 

 found in the animal kingdom. 



While Archaeopteryx was smaller than a crow many of his 

 extinct relatives maintained the reputation of their reptilian 

 connections for size. Among these are the moas of New 

 Zealand, which must have become extinct within the memory 

 of man, for less than a century ago the Maoris firmly believed 

 in their existence. Their largest representative was the giant 

 moa, Dinornis maximus, which was at least ten feet high. 

 Another giant of the bird world was ^Epyornis of Madagascar, 

 legends of wbich may have served as the basis for the roc 

 in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor; but this was equalled by 

 Phororaehis, the giant of the Patagonian pampas, who flour- 

 ished in Miocene days, long before the advent of man, and 

 who was seven or eight feet in height and had a skull 

 larger than that of a horse. Another although smaller bird 

 was the vulture, whose remains have recently been unearthed 

 or rather untarred from the tar pits of Bancho La Brea near 

 Los Angeles, Cal., whose spread of wing was probably greater 

 than that of the great condor, which today circles about the 

 Andean peaks of South America. 



And so for the present we may leave the extinct reptiles 

 and their feathered kin, who in days of yore ruled earth and 

 sea and sky. "For the wind passeth over it and it is gone 

 and the place thereof shall know it no more." So passed 

 these creatures of antiquity, to give place to races better 

 fitted to cope with the new environments of the passing ages 

 and the changing earth. Many if not all of them will in their 

 turn go down in life's struggle before the advancing armies 

 of future generations, these in turn giving place to others, 

 until life itself shall be no more. 



The reptiles and the birds form one of the topmost branches 

 of the vertebrate tree, while the mammals form the other. 

 The latter, while less spectacular in their evolution than the 

 former, are of even greater interest since man himself is one 

 of them, and since they are the latest, and in many ways 

 dominant group among the vertebrates of today. 



As in the case of all great groups of animals and plants 

 the actual ancestor of the mammals is unknown. Nor is it 

 certain whether they are the offspring of amphibian, reptile 

 or some intermediate stock. Their first appearance was near 

 the beginning of the Mesozoic era, when the reptilian dynasty 

 was arising to rule the earth. The first of the mammals were 

 small creatures and were probably the prey of the carnivorous 

 reptiles, although they in turn may have been one cause of 



