“It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.”

Mark Twain, opening chapter 8 of Following the Equator, 1897

Also in that chapter, the life of the extinct moa – possibly slightly exaggerated:

The Moa stood thirteen feet high, and could step over an ordinary man’s head or kick his hat off; and his head, too, for that matter. He said it was wingless, but a swift runner. The natives used to ride it. It could make forty miles an hour, and keep it up for four hundred miles and come out reasonably fresh. It was still in existence when the railway was introduced into New Zealand; still in existence, and carrying the mails. The railroad began with the same schedule it has now: two expresses a week-time, twenty miles an hour. The company exterminated the moa to get the mails.