The _Moa_ of Madagascar was smaller, and is known as the _Æpyornis_. But it lays the largest egg known, a tremendous thing as big as a Rugby football. It was this very large egg which inflamed the imagination of ancient navigators, and led to the vast exaggeration in describing the so-called "Roc," which Sindbad met with in the _Arabian Nights_. In concluding these brief notes on extinct birds we must also mention the present-day "kiwi" in New Zealand, which resembles in some respects the _Apteryx_, or most ancient of birds.
Let us now return to the land reptiles of the Chalk period. These are chiefly found in America, which was not submerged, as the greater part of Europe was, beneath the ocean. The incursion of the sea was more limited in the western hemisphere, and the land area was large enough to allow the continued progress of the land reptiles, though even here the sea reptiles seem to have done best. The great Dinosaurs still kept in the forefront, but they were not quite so pre-eminent as heretofore. The flesh-eating forms were less abundant, though among them an enormous kangaroo-like reptile, fifteen feet long, made its appearance. The _Dryptosaurus_ must have been speedy, very powerful, and its habits must have made it appear like an ogre in seven-league boots to its smaller inoffensive neighbours. The Spoonbill Dinosaurs (_Hadrosaurus_) were very curious creatures, who also faintly resembled a kangaroo, but had enormous lower parts and crocodile-like tails.
But the most singular development appeared in the Ceratops family of the vegetarian reptiles, particularly in the genus called _Triceratops_. These were very large quadrupeds with enormous skulls which stretched back over the neck and shoulders in an enormous cape or hood of bone. Added to this was a sharp parrot-like beak, a stout horn on the nose, a pair of large pointed horns on the top of the head, and a row of projections round the edge of the cape. The _Triceratops_ wanted all the protection it could get, for it had no intelligence worth mentioning. Professor Marsh remarks that they had the largest heads and the smallest brains of the reptile race.
The heavy armour of the head of the _Triceratops_ must have been developed for purposes of attack and defence, but we do not know whether it was for fighting their own species or for protection against the carnivorous reptiles. "So long," says Professor F. A. Lucas, "as _Triceratops_ faced an adversary he must have been practically invulnerable, but, as he was the largest animal of his time, it is probable that his combats were mainly with those of his own kind, and the subject of dispute some fair female upon whom rival suitors had cast covetous eyes. What a sight it would have been to have seen two of these big brutes in mortal combat, as they charged upon each other with all the impetus to be derived from ten tons of infuriate flesh! We may picture to ourselves horn clashing upon horn, or glancing from each bony shield until some skilful stroke or unlucky slip placed one combatant at the mercy of his adversary....