Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/359

Rh one slightly red spot under the wing; they have the bill of a goose, but little more pointed, and their toes are very long and somewhat separated. They feed in marshy places, where dogs often surprise them, because they take some time to lift themselves from the ground. We saw one one day at Rodriguez, of such a size that we caught him by hand; this is the only one we observed there, which leads me to think he must have been driven thither by the wind, not being able to resist its force. The bird is tolerably good eating." Much unsuccessful conjecture as to what this "giant" might be was wasted, but at length the able Dutch naturalist Schlegel proved that the species was a kind of water-hen, quite peculiar in character, and in naming it (Leguatia gigantea) he meant to perpetuate the memory of the Protestant fugitive whose misfortune became a gain to science.

Nor is this yet all: the bones of a coot much larger than the European one have been found at Mauritius, as well as remains belonging to a parrot, contemporary with the dodo, of the size of a cockatoo; a fragment of another parrot, now extinct, has been found at Rodriguez. We are filled with astonishment in reflecting on what must formerly have been the richness of Nature in the Mascarene Islands; magnificent or wonderful birds were the embellishments of those regions lost as it were in ocean, and amid a world of weaker creatures they seemed to be the sovereigns.

Thirty years ago a discovery of the most unexpected kind produced a real sensation in the scientific world: the bones of birds of gigantic proportions had just been brought to light in the rivers of New Zealand. Nothing more was needed to stimulate men of science, who were exploring the country of the Maoris, with the desire of pushing their researches actively. They excavated in water-courses, marshes, and caves, and bones in considerable quantity were soon found. They obtained the entire skeleton of a bird approaching the giraffe in size, and those of several other species of the same group of smaller dimensions. These remarkable fragments coming into the hands of the eminent English naturalist, Richard Owen, were the subject of continued profound studies. The birds of New Zealand, extinct at an epoch doubtless very near our own, and yet known to us only by relics, have been called the Dinornis; the species of largest size has received the name of gigantic dinornis. The English explorers, finding the bones of dinornis in the beds or on the banks of rivers, often mixed with the bones of animals yet living in the country, or with those of man even, sometimes in cavities full of ashes and charcoal, where food had been prepared, were convinced that these relics came from individuals whose destruction was recent. The hope occurred to every one of finding yet living specimens either in the woods or the mountains, encouraging them to scour the country; but all researches till now have remained unsuccessful. The natives of New Zealand, asked a thousand times about the origin of these bones of