THE VAST. 



within pistol-shot before it extended its enormous 

 wings to take flight, which was to me the signal 

 to fire ; and having loaded with an ample charge 

 of pellets, my aim proved effectual and fatal. 

 What a formidable monster did I behold, scream- 

 ing and flapping in the last convulsive struggle of 

 life ! It may be difficult to believe that the most 

 gigantic animal which inhabits the earth or the 

 ocean, can be equalled in size by a tenant of the 

 air; and those persons who have never seen a 

 larger bird than our mountain eagle, will proba- 

 bly read with astonishment of a species of that 

 same bird, in the southern hemisphere, being so 

 large and strong as to seize an ox with its talons, 

 and to lift it into the air, whence it lets it fall to 

 the ground, in order to kill it and prey upon the 

 carcass. But this astonishment must, in a great 

 measure, subside when the dimensions of the bird 

 are taken into consideration, and which, incred- 

 ible as they may appear, I now insert from a 

 note taken by my own hand. When the wings 

 are spread they measure sixteen spaces, forty feet 

 in extent from point to point. The feathers are 

 eight spaces, twenty feet in length, and the quill 

 part, two palms, eight feet in circumference. It is 

 said to have strength enough to carry off a living 

 rhinoceros.''* 



Humboldt dissipated these extravagances; 

 though he confesses that it appeared to himself of 

 colossal size, and it was only the actual admeas- 

 urement of a dead specimen that corrected the 

 optical illusion. He met with no example that 

 exceeded nine feet, and he was assured by many 

 of the inhabitants of Quito that they had never 

 shot any that exceeded eleven. This estimate, 

 however, appears to be below the reality; for 

 * Temple's " Travels in Peru." 

 119 



