GIANT ROAD-MAKERS 111 



the race that inhahited New Zealand before the 

 Maoris. There is no question about the fact that 

 the moas existed up until a very late era. Even 

 the big roads made by them on the sides of the 

 hills remained intact until a few years ago. Some 

 scholars go so far as to assert that these helpless 

 road-makers were very intelligent, and stationed 

 sentinels at certain crossroads to warn all bird 

 travellers of the blood-thirsty enemies. 



It is interesting to know that at the time the 

 dodo thrived in the Island of Mauritius, the neigh- 

 bouring Island of Rodriguez had as one of its in- 

 habitants a big pigeon known as the solitaire, 

 somewhat similar to the dodo. 



In Samoa, in the South Pacific, lives a toothed 

 pigeon which is but a dodo on a miniature scale. 

 This wise little bird has been forced to keep up his 

 flight of recent years by the ever-presence of ene- 

 mies. Previous to the introduction into the archi- 

 pelago of rats and mice, which threatened the bird's 

 very existence by eating its eggs, the solitaire spent 

 most of its life on the ground. But since the ar- 

 rival of rats and man, this bird dwells in the high 

 tree-tops, and it will avoid the unhappy fate of 

 the dodo, by thus changing its modes of life to fit 

 the new conditions, and to annul the new dangers. 



A race of gigantic birds can thrive and multiply 



