Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1887 — Birds of Yesterday. [ARTICLE]

Birds of Yesterday.

A number of large and interesting birds have become extinct within recent times. Of these the epiornis, of Madagascar, was probably the largest. Fossil fragments indicate that this creature was at least twelve feet in height, with a weight five or six times as great as that of the ostrich. Specimens of its eggs have been found, and measure nearly thirteen and a half inches in largest diameter by nine inches in smallest diameter, with a capacity of nearly eight quarts. The moa, or dinornis, of New Zealand, was also larger than any bird now living, its height having been ten or twelve feet. Its “drumstick” was thirty to thirty-two inches long, and its eggs so large that & hat would 'make a good egg-cup for them. The famous dodo, fifty-pound bird of Mauritius, was once well known to the Dutch, but has not been reported as seen during the last two hundred years. The solitaire is another exterminated bird of the same island. The great auk, of the North Sea, is supposed to have become extinct since 18i4. These are a few of the latest disappearances of the bird world; other large species are fast diminishing in numbers, and soon the Australian emu and New Zealand apteryx, for example, will have passed away also. Elizabeth Charlotte, the Duchess of Orleans, writing under the date of Dec. 5, 171- 1 , says: “The late King, monsieur the Dauphin, and the Due de Berri were terrible eaters. I have often seen the King eat four plates of different k nds of soup, a whole pheasant, a partridge, a dish of salad, two th ck slices of ham, mutton flavored with garlic, a plateful of pastry, and finish his repast with fruit and hardboiled eggs.”