inaccurate error message from tail

$ tail --version
tail (textutils) 2.1
Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, Ian Lance Taylor, and Jim Meyering.

Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
$ tail -c 1,2
tail: 1,2: is so large that it is not representable
$ tail -c foo
tail: foo: invalid number of bytes

Shouldn't that 1,2 give also "invalid numer of bytes" in stead of "too
large"? 

A user just asked me why "tail -c 60,095,344" doesn't work.