Largest organisms were related to the ostrich. They exceeded in height and . The last of the elephant birds became extinct about 300 years ago. Of almost exactly the same upper proportions as the largest elephant birds was "Dromornis stirtoni" of Australia, part of a 26,000-year-old group called mihirungs of the family Dromornithidae. The largest carnivorous bird was "Brontornis", an extinct flightless bird from South America which reached a weight of and a height of about . The tallest carnivorous bird was "Kelenken", which could reach 3 to 3.2 meters in height and 220 to 250 kilograms. The tallest bird ever was
François Lays at the École royale de Musique et de Déclamation, which had replaced the Conservatoire. The salary was indispensable to Lays because his gout meant he was no longer able to appear at the Opéra as regularly as he had done, leading to a drastic reduction in extra income. In 1816, Lays had the satisfaction of enjoying one final triumph in the comic opera "Le rossignol" by Louis-Sébastien Lebrun (1764–1829), set in the foothills of his native Pyrenees. Lays took one of his favourite stock parts, "a bailiff in his fifties, a lover of good food and beautiful young women, naive