THE FAIRFIELD HERALD — JUNE 5, 1872
Last Tuesday evening about seven o’clock, says the Winnemucca (Cal.) Register of August 9, the people in the lower town were startled by the sudden appearance of a huge monster we are at a loss to know whether to call fowl or beset, notwithstanding it had wings and could fly. It was certainly the biggest creature ever seen in this country with feathers. If a bird, it belongs to a giant species unknown to American ornithology. Our attention was first attracted by hearing some one sing out, “Holy Mother, see that cow with wings.”
We stepped to the door just in time to see the monster alight with something of a crash on the roof of Mrs. Collier’s dwelling house, where it remained for several minutes taking a quiet survey of the land and the astonished multitude who stood gazing at that unexpected visitor. It could not have weighed less than seventy or one hundred pounds, with a pair of ponderous wings, which when stretched out to the breeze, must have been fully twelve feet from tip to tip. Its color was that of a raven, with the exception that the tips of the wing and tail were white. An “old salt” who happened to get sight of the bird thinks he must be a renegade member of the condor family. He says be has frequently met with such “Critters” on the coast of South America.
From— The Fairfield Herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.), 05 June 1872. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.
