INTRODUCTION. 



A BIRD 



Is a feathered vertebrate auiiiial ; or, to describe it more fully, it is an air-breathiug, 

 warm-blooded, feathered, oviparous (egg-laying), vertebrate animal, having a four- 

 chambered heart, and a complete double circulation. Birds occupy a place in nature 

 intermediate between the niannnals and the reptiles, and many naturalists consider a 

 bird to be merely a modified reptile. Be that as it may ; we are morally certain that 

 thousands of years ago there existed on the earth huge, lizard-like birds, of many of 

 which we know nothing. The oldest known form of which we have any actual 

 knowledge is the celebrated Archd'opteryx^ a fossil found by Andreas Wagner, in the 

 Oolitic slate of Solenhofer, Bavaria, in 1861. This reptile bird had a lizard-like 

 tail bordered with feathers, and jaws armed with teeth. 



Of late years, many important osteological discoveries have been made, and from 



Dodo. 



O^tiicli. 



the reconstructed skeletons we are :il>le to form some idea of the size and shape of a 

 few of the many huge ami strange birds which lived and dit'd in the forgotten past. 

 'J'he Jlarjiiif/oniis, an innnense raptorial l)ird, (jr some similar monster, may have t)rig- 

 inated the stories of the Woe of mnsery lore. Still later, we have the Dodo of Mauri- 

 tius, and the Moa of New /i'alaii<l. the latter a giant bird, imi<h larger than the 



