THE NATURALISTS' COMPANION. 106 
EXTIJVCT BIRDS. 
BY CHAS. D. E^ENDELL. 
ICTKiHOUGH perhaps not properly birds 
l^lj strictly speaking,geological re- 
' searches have bi^ought to light two 
I or three at least,remarkable bird¬ 
like reptiles belonging to the Cretace¬ 
ous Period. The Hadrosuariis was an 
immence biped from twent}? to twenty- 
live feet high, having legs shaped like 
those of an ostrich but of elephantine 
strength and structure. The upper 
parts of this pi’odigy were compara¬ 
tively slender. Its head was also small 
and its mouth furnished with teeth 
for browsing among the higher branch¬ 
es. With strange and lofty form, and 
clothed, instead of feathers, with ser¬ 
pent-like scales of various colors which 
glittered with metalic luster, this ani¬ 
mal must indeed have presented a 
frightful aspect. 
The Laelaps was another equally 
gigantic biped of this period; one of 
the most terrible and rapacious mon¬ 
sters the earth ever saw. It could run 
with great swiftness, and rushed upon 
its prey by titanic leaps, throwing its 
huge bulk thirty feet and crushing its 
victim under its gigantic talons. 
Far surpassing in its strange mon¬ 
strosity the flying dragon of pagan 
mythology, is the Pteradactyle. Its 
bones were hollow, like birds’, but it 
bore no feathers. Its head, shaped 
like a swans’, had a mouthfull of teeth 
like the crocodile. Its wings had a 
spread of about sixteen feet. 
Numerous footprints, and of many 
sizes, of extinct birds have been found 
in the old red sandstone of the Connec¬ 
ticut valle^y. How solemn and impres¬ 
sive the thought that, ‘‘the footprints 
of these dumb and senseless creatures 
have been preserved in all their per¬ 
fection for thousands of ages, while so 
many of the works of man which date 
but a century back have been obliter¬ 
ated from the recordsof time!” Some 
of these tracks measure fifteen inches 
in length and so deep as to hold two 
quarts of water. According to Hitch¬ 
cock this bird greatly exceeded the 
ostrich in size being at least twelve 
feet high and weighing from 400 to 
800 pounds. The remains of a buzzard 
have also been found which was equal 
in size to the largest condor that soars 
in his majestic flight above the lofty 
peaks of the Andes. 
But of those just described we have 
only geological record. Others there 
are, however, which have inhabited 
this earth since the adimnt of man, 
and have within his memory become 
extinct, and are now without represen¬ 
tatives of their kind. 
The disappearance of the gigantic 
Dinornis (or Moa, as the natives called 
it.) from New Zealand dates from no 
very distant epoch. A portion of the 
skeleton of one which was eighteen 
feet high is in a London museum. 
The ancient legends of this island tell 
us that at the time of its discovery it 
was full of birds of appalling size, 
and described the ceremonies that took 
place when one was killed. Some of 
the hills are still strewn with the bones 
of this ornithological mammoth—the 
remains of the great feasts of the hunt¬ 
ers. An egg of this bird which 
was found not man}^ years ago, 
was ten inches long and seven inches 
wide and was of a dirty brown color. 
It was sold for about $1,000. 
Madagascar also furnishes another 
representative in the Epiornis, which 
was even of greater size than the pre- 
ceeding. The museum at Paris has 
an eo’o- of this colossal bird which is 
Oo 
six times as large as an ostrich egg. 
Accurate calculations demonstrate the 
startling dact that to All the cavity 
would require 12,000 humming birds’ 
eggs! The shell was two-twentyfifths 
of an inch thick and could only be 
broken with a blow from a hammer. 
Imagine the strength of the young 
bird to force its wav out into the world. 
