Word: flightless
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...carcass intact for thousands of years. In temperate New Zealand there was no permafrost but in South Island's Pyramid Valley paleontologists have found a good substitute. From about 18,000 B.C. until 2,-000 years ago, the valley contained a swamp whose lush vegetation attracted moas-great, flightless birds which weighed up to a quarter...
...including the giant moa twelve feet tall. They had scrapped their flying apparatus because they didn't need it; there were few ground enemies to zoom away from. But when man (first the Maoris, then the whites) arrived in New Zealand, bringing along dogs, cats and rats, the flightless birds had a tough time. Some went the way of the dodo...
Albatross & Wild Goat. "The wild life was sport, too-the six-inch penguins, flightless cormorants, pelicans, flamingos. At night, albatross dueled with their bills. The wild goats did the policing, ate all the waste paper...
When discussing Brigadier General James H. Doolittle [TIME, June 1], you state: "He was an early member of the Quiet Birdmen, the group of flyers who set themselves apart from the kiwi, an almost extinct flightless bird, and from the 'Modock,' legendary aviation term for a 'bird that flies backwards to keep the dust out of its eyes...
...made the first complete blind flight. A second lieutenant in World War I, he chafed at being kept at San Diego as an instructor. He was an early member of the Quiet Birdmen, the group of flyers who set themselves apart from the kiwi, an almost, extinct flightless bird, and from the "modock," legendary aviation term for a "bird that flies backwards to keep the dust out of its eyes...