"Oh yes; there are many birds, each of which may be the opmahera.
There's the fossil bird of Massachusetts, of which nothing is left but
the footprints; but some of these are eighteen inches in length, and
show a stride of two yards. The bird belonged to the order of the
Grallae, and may have been ten or twelve feet in height. Then there
is the Gastornis parisiensis, which was as tall as an ostrich, as
big as an ox, and belongs to the same order as the other. Then there
is the Palapteryx, of which remains have been found in New Zealand,
which was seven or eight feet in height. But the one which to my mind
is the real counterpart of the opmahera is the Dinornis gigantea,
whose remains are also found in New Zealand. It is the largest bird
known, with long legs, a long neck, and short wings, useless for
flight. One specimen that has been found is upward of thirteen feet in
height. There is no reason why some should not have been much taller.
More compares its height to that of a giraffe. The Maoris call this
bird the Moa, and their legends and traditions are full of mention
of it. When they first came to the island, six or seven hundred years
ago, they found these vast birds everywhere, and hunted them for food.
To my mind the dinornis is the opmahera of More. As to riding on them,
that is likely enough; for ostriches are used for this purpose, and
the dinornis must have been far stronger and fleeter than the ostrich.
It is possible that some of these birds may still be living in the
remoter parts of our hemisphere."

"What about those monsters," asked Featherstone, "that More speaks of
in the sacred hunt?"

"I think," said the doctor, "that I understand pretty well what they
were, and can identify them all. As the galley passed the estuary
of that great river, you remember that he mentions seeing them on
the shore. One may have been the Ichthyosaurus. This, as the name
implies, is a fish-lizard. It has the head of a lizard, the snout of
a dolphin, the teeth of an alligator, enormous eyes, whose membrane
is strengthened by a bony frame, the vertebrae of fishes, sternum and
shoulder-bones like those of the lizard, and the fins of a whale.
Bayle calls it the whale of the saurians. Another may have been the
Cheirotherium. On account of the hand-shaped marks made by its paws,
Owen thinks that it was akin to the frogs; but it was a formidable
monster, with head and jaws of a crocodile. Another may have been the
Teleosaurus