These birds, he said, were so big and had such great wings that if they came down on the flat earth they would be incapable of rising, hence they only alighted on the tops of high mountains, and as there was nothing for them to eat in such places, it being naked rock and ice, they were compelled to subsist on each other's droppings.

Now it came to pass that one year during his childhood a crane, owing to some accident, came down to the ground near his home.

The whole population of the village turned out to see so wonderful a bird, and were amazed at its size; it was, he said, the strangest sight he had ever looked on.

How big was it?
I asked him; was it as big as an ostrich?
An ostrich, he said, was nothing to it; I might as well ask him how it compared with a lapwing.

He could give me no measurements: it happened when he was a child; he had forgotten the exact size, but he had seen it with his own eyes and he could see it now in his mind--the biggest bird in the world.