MYTH AND FACT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1937, Page 17

MYTH AND FACT

HUGE RUNNING BIRDS

THE MOA AND THE ROC

Sindbad the Sailor was amazed at the size of the egg he found on the island on which he had been marooned while enjoying a midday sleep. Fifty paces in circumference is indeed a record in sizes of birds' eggs. The parent, so large that it darkened the sky, was a flying bird that carried whole elephants in- its talons. Little wonder, then, that Sirisbgd was able to pass unnoticed when he 'i*g3 himself to her feet and so obtained aS^de to the mountain with the valley of disk : monds. The story of the voyage of Sindbad, which relates his encounters with the roc, fascinated us In our chilahood. In our adult years it has. a double interest. We may inquire into the distribution and origin o.+ the legend from an ethnological point Qf view or we may speculate as to whether it was founded on the existence of any birds large enough and sufficiently distant from the domicile of the story to form the basis of such a tale. The. story was widely spread in the East and was made familiar to Europe through the French translation by Galland. The roc, however, is mentioned by Marco Polo at an earlier time. Pursuit along the ethnological line would lead back to the Persian origins of the "Thousand-and-one Nights" and to the supposed identity, of their relator, Shahrazad, with Esther. In this article, however, it is the intention to refer briefly to the relation between the story of Sindbad's second voyage and the elephant bird of Mad* gascar. . ' ORIGIN OF ROC LEGEND. Marco Polo reported that gigantic leaves of the raphia palm were known as roc's feathers; and one was brought to the Great Khan. They came from Madagascar, where the remains of large birds have been found. It may have been more than a coincidence, therefore, that the giant palm leaves were called roc's feathers; in other words, the legend of the roc may have originated from descriptions of large birds brought by travellers from Madagascar to the East. . ;: ~.

At anyrate, there did exist in Mada^ gascar until geologically recent times a number of species of large running birds which would be contemporaneous with the moa of New Zealand. With her usual exact methods science has.re, duced the si2e of the birds to demonstrable proportions and has declared that they did not fly. The birds, in fact, have been- placed in the scheme of the ornithologist's classification and found to belong to the same group as the ostrich, emu. cassowary, moa, and

kiwL It will be of interest, therefore, to compare the elephant birds, as the Madagascar species are.called, with ths moas. In the Dominion Museum .the leg-bones of "the largest species of elephant bird are set up beside the skeleton of a moa, not, however, one of the largest kind. Nevertheless, the- comparison is illuminating. It brings out the fact that for strength and weight the elephant bird far surpasses the moa. The leg-bones of the Madagascar, birds are quite comparable with, say, those of a young elephant. In the moa the'bones are comparatively slender. The largest kind of moa, which we are accustomed to think of as a somewhat weighty'bird, was graceful in comparison with the largest elephant bird. Nevertheless, the New Zealander could lo'okioverthe head of his Madagascar cousin. ' AN ENORMOUS EGG. The first evidence of the former existence of gigantic birds in Madagascar was made known in 1851 by Isidore' Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who gave the name of Aepyornis maximus .to a species represented by an enormous egg received •at that time in Paris. Shortly afterwards bones were brought to Europe and substantiated the account deduced from the egg. There Is in' the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, an egg of this species measuring eleven and five-eighths inches long and eight and a- half inches in ■' diameter. Such an egg would have a capacity approaching two gallons-and be equal to perhaps 140 hens' eggs. Quite a number of eggs of the elephant, birds have been found in Madagascar. They occur in the sand bordering lakes and may be washed out during stormy weather. They float on the water and are gathered by the natives;' Before Europeans created a demand for.them they were used by the natives for holding water. . ...... Altogether, about twelve species ol birds belonging to the elephant bird family have been described from Madagascar, that is to say, about half as] many kinds as there were of moas. The/problem of their origin is similar toHhat of the raoa. Whence they came, why'there are so many species,- arfd hfiw they came to be confined to their respective islands, are problems \i or thes scientists of both Madagascar and /New' Zealand. '4. .. — • • •