BIRD OR REPTILE WHICH / 7 i 9 



BIRD OR REPTILE WHICH? 



By HENKY 0. FOEBES. 



TO most people it may appear not only easy enough to distinguish, 

 but even a matter of some difficulty not to be able to identify, a 

 bird from a reptile or from any other animal whatsoever. No one 

 would hesitate for a moment to assign to the bird tribe, on seeing 

 them even for the first time, forms differing from each other so much 

 as the " wingless " apteryx of New Zealand and the strong-pinioned 

 albatross ; the marvelously tinted humming-bird and the raw-necked 

 vulture ; or the fleet ostrich and the stolid hornbill ; for in each indi- 

 vidual the eye at once perceives one character at least common to the 

 whole assemblage which is wanting in all other groups. Yet the ques- 

 tion to be discussed in this paper of bird or not-bird, and in particular 

 of bird or reptile, is, as we shall see below, one not without serious dif- 

 ficulty. 



In order to a more easy comprehension of the question, let us 

 shortly, and with as few technicalities of expression as possible, pass 

 in review the chief characters of the groups we have placed in appo- 

 sition. 



Birds may be characterized generally as feathered bipeds, whose 

 mouth is modified into a longer or shorter beak incased in a horny 

 sheath, sometimes serrated along the margin, but never presenting true 

 teeth ; whose fore-limbs assume the form of wings more or less devel- 

 oped, and having the hind-limbs supported on, at most, four toes, the 

 innermost, however, in many birds being so imperfectly developed as 

 not to reach the ground. 



Every one who has handled a living bird knows that it is warm- 

 blooded ; and whoever, while not neglecting the " main chance," when 

 dining on partridge or fowl, has nevertheless not been too absorbed to 

 mark the prominent points that distinguished the skeletal remains of 

 his feast from those of a hare, for instance, is aware that along the cen- 

 tre of the breastbone there runs a high crest for the attachment of the 

 wing-muscles ; that the collar-bones unite to form the bone of destiny 

 with which he has been familiar from his youth as the "merry- 

 thought ; " that the haunch-bone, which incloses the bowels and gives 

 attachment to the hind-limbs, differs from a higher quadruped's in 

 being composed, not of two bones (each of which is in reality made 

 up of three bones ossified together), one on each side articulating with 

 yet separate from the spine, and touching each other in the median line 

 beneath, but of these elements and several vertebras in addition, con- 

 solidated into one, having the margins free and separated by a consid- 

 erable space from each other below ; and that instead of a tail, com- 

 monly so called, the rear of the spinal column is brought up by what is 



