Roc, or РУКН, a fabulous bird of immense size, able to carry off an elephant in its talons. The idea is familiar in the East, and every reader will remember it in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Colonel Yule pointed out that the huge fronds of the Raphia (q.v.) palms were brought from Madagascar as roc's feathers. Mythical birds of similar size and strength were the Arabian 'ankā and the Persian simurgh. The amru or siuamru was an older Persian supernatural bird; the Indian garuda, which bears Vishnu, is the king of birds. It has been suggested, without good grounds, that the legends of the roc might have originated in traditions of extinct birds of great size, like the
Dinornis or Æpyornis, which, however, could not fly.