359 
FEATHERED FORMS OF OTHER DAYS. 
Sanborn Tenney's Zoology, who in turn has it 
after Professor Hochstetter’s restoration. The 
king of all the moas, a ponderous ostrich-bird, 
likewise numbered among the extinct forms of 
New Zealand, was Dinornis giganieus. Against 
this formidable bird-giant the primitive natives 
waged constant warfare, and an old legend is 
still going the rounds of popular compilations 
in natural history of how a traveler was shown 
the very spot where the last moa was killed, 
after a frightful conflict, in which the natives 
lost several of their number. This giant at- 
tained a height of ten feet, and others say still 
more. That the last moa has perished there 
can now hardly be a reasonable doubt; but as 
to what manner of men surrounded this feath- 
ered monarch in his last struggle much doubt 
exists, and it probably will always remain a 
mooted question. Perhaps he fell not by the 
hand of man at all, for the same formation 
that held the remains of this Dinornis also 
contains the relics of a bird of prey, the 
Harpagornis , that when it lived was ol suffi- 
cient size to make the heaviest of all the moas 
its quarry. It is a suggestive thing to think 
upon, this death of the last of its race. This 
thought was forcibly brought to my mind after 
the death of an old buffalo bull that had wan- 
dered away many a mile from the herd, in 
the treeless plains of Wyoming. Mortally 
wounded, and surrounded by a party of In- 
dians, with whom I was, he made by no 
means a despicable struggle for his life. The 
thought came to me through all that long 
day, What if he were the last of his race ! 
How and where died the last mastodon, and 
who will see the last elephant as his ponderous 
form falls, or the last of the giraffes, when 
his eighteen feet or more comes to earth, if 
that is to be the style of his death ? Whence 
the assailants, and what may the fashion of 
their weapons be ? 
Such birds as the moas have long since 
been extinct in the island of Madagascar, but 
there was a time when there was reckoned 
among its ancient fauna a bird allied to the 
moas, that even towered above Dinornis, and 
must have been from twelve to fourteen feet 
in height. The sub-fossil egg that has been 
found of this huge creature has a capacity of 
one hundred and fifty hens’ eggs. It has re- 
ceived the name of ALpyornis viaximns, and 
its remains so far have yielded to us only a 
few fragmentary bones; one of these, the leg- 
bone, is fully a yard in length. 
Some five or six authoritative works in my 
library tell us that this is the bird that is prob- 
ably alluded to as the roc in the “ Arabian 
Nights’ Entertainments.” But I must con- 
fess that, with the exception of the sole char- 
acteristic that both birds were of immense 
size, the relationship does not strike me. Per- 
haps others may be more fortunate in knowing 
the origin of this statement. The giant ostrich 
of Madagascar was a flightless bird, and no 
doubt inhabited the more open plains and 
level parts of the country, while every allusion 
that comes to my mind in the “Arabian Nights” 
to the roc gives it just the opposite habits, 
being a bird of powerful flight, very prone to 
seize objects in its talons, and living in the 
highest of mountains. We find the roc spoken 
of m the story of Aladdin, where the magi- 
cian’s brother, disguised as Fatima, holds the 
conversation with Aladdin’s wife, the princess, 
who is made to ask during the course of the 
dialogue : 
“ My good mother, what kind of a bird is a 
roc, and where could the egg of one be found ?” 
“ Princess,” answered the feigned Fatima, 
“ the roc is a bird of prodigious size, which 
inhabits the summit of Mount Caucasus, and 
the architect who designed your palace can 
procure you one.” 
In the second voyage of Sindbad the Sailor 
it is spoken of again, and a representation of 
it given in a figure, which looks more like 
a great vulture than any other bird with which 
the writer is acquainted. FI ere are mentioned 
the immense flights it was in the habit of tak- 
ing, and that it made serpents of the most 
fabulous dimensions its prey. Sindbad has an- 
other adventure with rocs in his fifth voyage, 
where a pair of them are made to drop enor- 
mous rocks, which they carried in their talons, 
on the ship in which he is sailing with other 
merchants, in retaliation for their having de : 
stroyed their egg ashore, which was just at the 
point of bringing forth young. 
We now come to the consideration of those 
birds that have disappeared from the earth 
within comparatively recent times- — all of our 
foregoing history being confined to birds 
known to us only as fossils, or, as in the case 
of the ostriches, in a sub-fossil condition. Of 
all the birds extirpated within the last few 
centuries, none can claim an equal share 
of interest with the famous dodo, once the 
inhabitant of the island of Mauritius; and 
notwithstanding the fact that quite an exten- 
sive literature, several large portraits, and one 
or two exhaustive monographs are in exist- 
ence elucidating all we are permitted to kno\v 
of this bird, still this paper would be incom- 
plete, v'ere we to pass by without an allusion 
to the dodo. 
We will do more than that for him; we will 
gather together, from books and elsewhere, 
all of the old grotesque and almost ridicu- 
lous pictures we possess of him, and endeavor 
to introduce him in a more life-like attitude 
(see page 360). 
