CHAPTER XXXV 





SOME COMMON BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA 



LACK of space prevents us from giving a full account of the 

 twelve thousand or more different kinds of living birds known 

 at the present time, 

 and students must 

 therefore be referred 

 to books concerned 

 only with birds. Of the 

 twelve thousand de- 

 scribed species about 

 850 are known to oc- 

 cur in North Amer- 

 ica. A single state may be 

 inhabited by three hundred 

 species; for example, 326 dif- 

 ferent kinds of birds have 

 been recorded from the state 

 of Michigan. The number in 

 any particular locality de- 

 pends largely upon the amount 

 of water, swamps, and forests 

 in that vicinity; an average 

 number is about 200; 267 

 have been observed in the vi- 

 cinity of Ann Arbor, Michigan. 



Ancient Birds. --The birds 

 that lived on the earth thou- 

 sands of years ago differed from those alive to-day in many re- 

 spects. The most ancient of these is the reptile-like bird called 



361 



FIG. 238. Skeleton of the extinct 

 moa. (After Owen.) 



