Indeed, He Is Disposed To Attribute
The Extinction Of The Harpagornis To That Of The Moa, Which Was The Only
Victim In The Country Which Could Supply It With A Sufficiency Of Food."
One is tempted to add that if the Moa or Dinornis of New Zealand had its
Harpagornis scourge, the still greater Aepyornis of Madagascar may have
had a proportionate tyrant, whose bones (and quills ?) time may bring to
light.
And the description given by Sir Douglas Forsyth on page 542, of
the action of the Golden Eagle of Kashgar in dealing with a wild boar,
illustrates how such a bird as our imagined Harpagornis Aepyornithon
might master the larger pachydermata, even the elephant himself, without
having to treat him precisely as the Persian drawing at p. 415 represents.
Sindbad's adventures with the Rukh are too well known for quotation. A
variety of stories of the same tenor hitherto unpublished, have been
collected by M. Marcel Devic from an Arabic work of the 10th century on
the "Marvels of Hind," by an author who professes only to repeat the
narratives of merchants and mariners whom he had questioned. A specimen of
these will be found under Note 6. The story takes a peculiar form in the
Travels of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela. He heard that when ships were in
danger of being lost in the stormy sea that led to China the sailors were
wont to sew themselves up in hides, and so when cast upon the surface they
were snatched up by great eagles called gryphons, which carried their
supposed prey ashore, etc.
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