BIRDS IN MANY LANDS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 22, Issue 29, 14 April 1911, Page 2

BIRDS IN MANY LANDS.

Which is the biggest bird in the world ? ‘''The roc,” answers the the small boy, with the assurance given by a recent trip with Sindbad in “The Arabian Nights." “Tha eagle,” thoughtlessly . answers the average man. “The ostrich,” asserts the scientist. If we accept mythology, the first answer is correct. If we mean the largest living bird, the ostrich, standing eight feet high, and weighing three hundred pounds, is far and away ahead of all competitors. It has only of late come into this post of honour, however, for a few centuries ago even its great bulk was overshaddowed by the gigantic moa of New Zealand, which held its bead eleven feet above the ground. Even if we restrict ourselves to the largest flying bird, the eagle would be some distance from the head of the list, contrary to public opinion. Three species would contest for this event—the wild turkey, the trumpeter swan, and the great bustard. The swan deserves second place, with a record weight of 25tb., while the bustard leads the heavyweight flyers, one of these birds having turned the scale at 821 b. The widest spread of wings will at once be claimed by many for the bald eagle, but, while six or seven feat is the limit for this species, the condor of California stretches nine or ten, and the wandering albatross expands its wonderful pinions from 12 to 14 feet.

The sunbirds of the Old World are put forth by many as the tiniest ; but all of these appear grossly bulky in comparison with some of the humming birds. The smallest of the five hundred species of these winged gems is the Princess Helena humming bird of Cuba, which measures only two and a quarter inches from' the bill to the tip of the tail. The nest, though neatly and strongly built, is only one inch across, while the cavity itself in which the young Princess of Princesses hatch and are reared is less than three-quarters of an inch in its diameter. Disregarding the enormous piled mound of leaves and dirt that is kicked together by the bush turkey of Australia as hardly worthy the title of nest, we decide on tht home of the fish hawk or osprey as the largest nest in the world. To a bulky mass of sticks and seaweed branch after branch is added throughout many years, until the long-sufiering tree groans under a dozen cartloads of nesting material, and finally falls to earth, unable longer to bear up the great weight. The white fairy eggs of the Princess Helena hummer are two-tenths of an inch wide and less than three-tenths long. If we took 200 or more of these eggs we should have a fairsized hen’s egg ; two dozen of these in turn, or 30,000 humming birds eggs, would be required to equal an ostrich egg, the largest of any living bird. In Madagascar have been found many fossil eggs of the giant extinct aepyornis, measuring nine by thirteen inches, equal in volume to six ostrich eggs. The contest of flight would lie between the : large vultures, such as the condors, which, soaring a mile or more above the sea, drop down like a meteor at the promise of food, and the albatross, day after day, soaring sq marvellously over smooth; seas and rough, sometimes gliding for hours without a single perceptible movement of the wing. The poorest flyers, if we omit those which have wholly lost the power of raising themselves above the earth, are the tinamou. These • birds have weak wings, which by t-he most violent effort can support them only for a few score yards, and as they have no tail they cannot direct their flights. Indeed, they sometimes start flying straight upward, and, unable to stop themselves, ascend until exhausted, then fall headlong to earth. The bird of widest north and south range is the Arctic tern, one of those swallows of the sea, related to the gulls. It is known to range to latitude 82 deg. north, and recently, on the Scottish Antarctic expedition, an observer secured one of these birds in 74 deg. south latitude, thus covering in its flight over 9,000 miles or 156 out of the 180 degrees between the two poles.—" New York Tribune.”