The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1847-05-06
Big Birds in Old Times,


The Scriptures tell US that "there were
giants in those days." and there is now and
then a stray leaf in the book of Nature that
tells us that they had birds and other animals
to correspond. We have all heard of, and
some of us have seen, the bones of the NAM
moth and mastodon aud the fossil remains of
enormous lizards and fishes and serpents.-
The birds, if we may believe what have been
found and seen in some of the geological re-
mains, were not a whit behind these in point
Of comparative size. What would you think
Of goose or turkey with foot eighteen inch
es long, attached to pair of legs that would
step distance Of from four to six feet apart
Wouldn't it puzzle the degenerate and puny
fowls Of our day to d" tread in the footsteps Of
their illustrious predecessors p If we may
judge Of the size of a creature by the size Of
its tootsteps,we used to have some pretty large
feathcrcd bipeds no further off than that good
ly country that lieth on the Connecticut river.
If you will look into the 29th volume of Sill
mans Journal of Science, you will there find
what Professor Hitchcock says in regard to the
prints of birds tracks in the sandstones that
border that river in IIadley, Springfield, &c.
The Professor was employed to make geo.
logical survey Of Massachusetts,, which survey
wis, not like that of orr State, left hardly a
quarter done, but well finished. We will
give you some of his account. ain one spe-
cimen," says he while speaking of the tracks
which he discovered. &" the claw is at least ttCO
inches long, and even then part oft appears
to be missing The whole length of the foot,
consequently, is sixteen or SeUe1tcen inches
Length Of the successive steps, between four
and six feet!" Indeed, he supposes from the
numerous examples which he has seen OF
tracks at the distance of four feet, that this
was the ordinary step of the bird when walk
ing; while it was able to lengthen it to six
feet, when moving rapidly.
In another place he observes" The best
specimen that possess exhibits, at few inch,
es behind the heel, depression nearly an
inch deep, and several inches across; the an
terror slopes to which,in the rear, appear as if
large bristlcs had been impressed upon the
mud: The impression extends backwards
from the heel, at least eight or nine inches,
so that the VIII ole length of the track is not
less than two feet The rock on which this
species Of track appears is composed Of fine
blue mud, such as is now common in ponds
and cstuarics and where the bird trod upon
it, i'll some cases, it seems the mud was
crowded upwards, forming ridge around the
track in front, several inches in height. In
deed, hesitate not to say, that the impress
sion made on the mud appears to have been
almost as deep, indicating a pressure almost
as great as if an elephant had passed over it.
| could not persuade myself, until the evil
dcnce became irresistible that l was examining
merely the track of bird"
BY way of giving us some idea Of the real
size of the bird, he takes for his standard of
comparison the largest bird that we now
have, viz, the ostrich "This bird (ostrich)
has foot only ten inches long,rockonigg from
the back part of the heel to the extremity of
the claws the length of the leg from the hip
joint to the ground, is four feet one inch and
yet it sometimes weighs eighty or one hun
dred pounds, and in walking, its head is as
high as that Of a man on horseback, or from
seven to nine feet. May we not infer that
some Of these ancient birds must have been
almost twice as high and heavy as the ostrich :?
From few trials, ! DO not believe that the
legs Of a bird (ncludiug the thigh) whose or
binary step was four feet could have been