300 Bird -Lore 



With this simple outline in hand, we may easily pigeon hole all the information we 

 need to have at present. 



If you were asked to point out the tail of a bird, how many would indicate the feathers 

 only, that project from the end of the bird's body? These feathers are not the real tail, 

 but merely appendages that are attached to the tail. Take the backbone of a chicken 

 as you see it on the table with no feathers whatever to confuse your minds. This large 

 broad bone is made up of several principal bones, which in the lizards are separate. 

 These bones form a girdle suspended from that part of the spinal column to which the 

 hind limbs are attached. In the chicken all of this girdle seems to be one large, irregular 

 bony mass, except the little, slender projections on either edge along the under sides. 



At the very back end of this bony mass, before the flesh is removed, you see a rather 

 short, pointed, upturned projection with a single oil-gland on its upper surface, provided 

 the cook does not remove it before the chicken is served. 



This end of the backbone is the tail and, if you were skilful enough to separate it 

 into its particular parts, you would find that certain vertebrae of the spine are here 

 more or less fused together, especially at the tip end, and that they support the tail- 

 feathers and the muscles which shut and open and lift, lower, or otherwise move them. 



Perhaps it would be clearer if you draw one long straight line on a paper, and say: 

 "This is a chicken's backbone." Then, back of the head and neck, you might draw a 

 set of lines to represent the girdle that supports the wings, and continuing along the 

 spine backward, another girdle to support the hind limbs, or legs. There would still be 

 left a short end to the straight line representing the spine, and this is what becomes 

 modified into a tail in vertebrates. 



A spine is made up of separate vertebrae, movable one upon another except in certain 

 places where particular rigidity is needed. Some of the vertebrae in the bird's tail are 

 separately moveable, while others are fused for strength and to furnish a rigid support 

 to the long feather-appendages. The very tip of a bird's tail is fused with one large 

 fan-shaped bone, and on this rests the oil-gland. In certain species of birds the oil- 

 gland is lacking, and it is smaller in land-birds, as a rule, than in water-birds. Can you 

 think of any reason for this, for, of course, you have seen a bird preen its plumage, and 

 most of you know that when it presses its bill over the oil-gland it is to assist in smooth- 

 ing the feathers? 



We may think then of the real tail of a bird as a series of small vertebral bones, more 

 or less joined together, forming a support on the upper surface for muscles bearing in 

 some cases an oil-gland, and at the extreme end supporting a series of feathers which 

 form a conspicuous part of the plumage. 



That these tail-feathers are not all alike one sees at a glance, for some are short and 

 soft while others are long and more or less stiff. The long feathers are arranged in pairs, 

 the middle ones overlapping the pair next under them and, in general, so on to the outer 

 ones. Sometimes these long feathers are pointed and very stiff at the ends, as in the 

 Woodpeckers, or almost needlelike, as in the Swifts. They may be straight or rounded 

 at the end or graduated in one of two ways. If graduated from the outer pair to the 

 inner, the tail has a forked appearance, as in the Barn Swallow; but, if graduated from 

 the inner pair to the outer, the shape of the tail becomes more or less pointed according 

 to the abruptness of the gradation. 



It is fine practice and a great help in field study to recognize the bird by its tail 

 In addition to great variations in shape, the color markings of the tail are very noticeable 

 in many species. Not only are the outer edges of the tail sometimes marked by spots, 

 patches, or showy lines of color, but the soft feathers known as coverts may be sharply 

 contrasted. These coverts are found on both the upper and under sides of the tail, 

 near the attachment to the body of the bird, and are sometimes highly ornamental. 

 \Vho has noticed that the ynder t^jl-coverts of 3 Catbird are a rich uniber brownf" Who 



