That
between the extremities of the wings is said to be 60 paces. They say too
that it carries away an elephant or any other great animal with the
greatest ease, and does great injury to the inhabitants of the country,
and is most rapid in its flight."
G.-St. Hilaire considered the Aepyornis to be of the Ostrich family;
Prince C. Buonaparte classed it with the Inepti or Dodos; Duvernay of
Valenciennes with aquatic birds! There was clearly therefore room for
difference of opinion, and Professor Bianconi of Bologna, who has written
much on the subject, concludes that it was most probably a bird of the
vulture family. This would go far, he urges, to justify Polo's account of
the Ruc as a bird of prey, though the story of it's lifting any large
animal could have had no foundation, as the feet of the vulture kind are
unfit for such efforts. Humboldt describes the habit of the condor of the
Andes as that of worrying, wearying, and frightening its four-footed prey
until it drops; sometimes the condor drives its victim over a precipice.
Bianconi concludes that on the same scale of proportion as the condor's,
the great quills of the Aepyornis would be about 10 feet long, and the
spread of the wings about 32 feet, whilst the height of the bird would be
at least four times that of the condor. These are indeed little more than
conjectures. And I must add that in Professor Owen's opinion there is no
reasonable doubt that the Aepyornis was a bird allied to the Ostriches.
We gave, in the first edition of this work, a drawing of the great
Aepyornis egg in the British Museum of its true size, as the nearest
approach we could make to an illustration of the Rukh from nature. The
actual contents of this egg will be about 2.35 gallons, which may be
compared with Fra Mauro's anfora! Except in this matter of size, his
story of the ship and the egg may be true.
A passage from Temple's Travels in Peru has been quoted as exhibiting
exaggeration in the description of the condor surpassing anything that can
be laid to Polo's charge here; but that is, in fact, only somewhat heavy
banter directed against our traveller's own narrative. (See Travels in
Various Parts of Peru, 1830, II. 414-417.)
Recently fossil bones have been found in New Zealand, which seem to bring
us a step nearer to the realization of the Rukh. Dr. Haast discovered in a
swamp at Glenmark in the province of Otago, along with remains of the
Dinornis or Moa, some bones (femur, ungual phalanges, and rib) of a
gigantic bird which he pronounces to be a bird of prey, apparently allied
to the Harriers, and calls Harpagornis.
