The Framework of the Bird 73 



skeleton of a bird are more or less soldered together, 

 yet the neck is far more flexible than in either of the 

 other examples. Indeed the neck of a bird has greater 

 freedom of motion than that of a snake. A lizard can 

 turn his head only a little way around, and we ourselves 

 can look only across our shoulder, but with a bird it is 



Fig. 50. — American Egret, showing curves into which the neck naturally falls 

 when the bird is at rest. When striking at a fish the vertebrae straighten 

 out. 



very different. Watch a heron or, better still, a fla- 

 mingo and see its neck describe figures of eight as he 

 arranges the feathers on its back. Few people would 

 ever imagine that there are exactly twice as many neck- 

 bones in a sparrow as in a giraffe, but such is the case, 

 there being fourteen in the former and seven in the latter. 

 In the neck of a swan there are twenty-three of these 

 bones. 



