ostriches

• ostriches

61:1.945,000,000 years ago the con­ti­nen­tal back­bones were el­e­vated in as­so­ci­a­tion with a very gen­eral sink­ing of the coast lines. Mam­malian life was evolv­ing rapidly. A small rep­til­ian, egg-lay­ing type of mam­mal flour­ished, and the an­ces­tors of the later kan­ga­roos roamed Aus­tralia. Soon there were small horses, fleet-footed rhinoceroses, tapirs with pro­boscises, prim­i­tive pigs, squir­rels, lemurs, opos­sums, and sev­eral tribes of mon­key­like an­i­mals. They were all small, prim­i­tive, and best suited to liv­ing among the forests of the moun­tain re­gions. A large os­trich­like land bird de­vel­oped to a height of ten feet and laid an egg nine by thir­teen inches. These were the an­ces­tors of the later gi­gan­tic pas­sen­ger birds that were so highly in­tel­li­gent, and that one­time trans­ported hu­man be­ings through the air.

• ostriches

61:2.12The bird life of the planet con­tin­ued to de­velop, but with few im­por­tant evo­lu­tion­ary changes. The ma­jor­ity of mod­ern birds were ex­is­tent, in­clud­ing gulls, herons, flamin­goes, buz­zards, fal­cons, ea­gles, owls, quails, and os­triches.

• descended from enormous ancient reptiles

65:2.9Prob­a­bly the great­est sin­gle leap of all pre­hu­man evo­lu­tion was ex­e­cuted when the rep­tile be­came a bird. The bird types of to­day—ea­gles, ducks, pi­geons, and os­triches—all de­scended from the enor­mous rep­tiles of long, long ago.