It is a pity that all the large names were used up before this group of birds was discovered, and it is particularly unfortunate that Dinornis, terrible bird, was applied to the root-eating Moas, for these Patagonian birds, with their massive limbs, huge heads and hooked beaks, were truly worthy of such a name; and although in nowise related to the eagles, they may in habit have been terrestrial birds of prey. Not all the members of this family are giants, for as in other groups, some are big and some little, but the largest among them might be styled the Daniel Lambert of the feathered race. _Brontornis_, for example, the thunder bird, or as the irreverent translate it, the thundering big bird, had leg-bones larger than those of an ox, the drumstick measuring 30 inches in length by 2-1/2 inches in diameter, or 4-1/4 inches across the ends, while the tarsus, or lower bone of the leg to which the toes are attached, was 16-1/2 inches long and 5-1/2 inches wide where the toes join on. Bear this in mind the next time you see a large turkey, or compare these bones with those of an ostrich: but lest you may forget, it may be said that the same bone of a fourteen-pound turkey is 5-1/2 inches long, and one inch wide at either end, while that of an ostrich measures 19 inches long and 2 inches across the toes, or 3 at the upper end. If Brontornis was a heavy-limbed bird, he was not without near rivals among the Moas, while the great Phororhacos, one of his contemporaries, was not only nearly as large, but quite unique in build. Imagine a bird seven or eight feet in height from the sole of his big, sharp-clawed feet, to the top of his huge head, poise this head on a neck as thick as that of a horse, arm it with a beak as sharp as an icepick and almost as formidable, and you have a fair idea of this feathered giant of the ancient pampas. The head indeed was truly colossal for that of a bird, measuring 23 inches in length by 7 in depth, while that of the racehorse Lexington, and he was a good-sized horse, measures 22 inches long by 5-1/2 inches deep. The depth of the jaw is omitted because we wish to make as good a case as possible for the bird, and the jaw of a horse is so deep as to give him an undue advantage in that respect. [Illustration: Fig. 30.--Skull of Phororhacos Compared with that of the Race-horse Lexington.] We can only speculate on the food of these great birds, and for aught we know to the contrary they may have caught fish, fed upon carrion, or used their powerful feet and huge beaks for grubbing roots; but if they were not more or less carnivorous, preying upon such reptiles, mammals and other birds as came within reach, then nature apparently made a mistake in giving them such a formidable equipment of beak and claw. So far as habits go we might be justified in calling them cursorial birds of prey. [Illustration: Fig. 31.--Leg of a Horse Compared with that of the Giant Moa.]