88 ANNUAL REPORT. 
It is also matter of sacred record that after the life-freighted ark had drifted — 
upon the great deep that engulfed a world for one huudred and fifty days, the 
first to go forth over the turbulent, shoreless ocean, upon the errands of ma 
was a bird. Was service ever so grand, or message so priceless, 
leaves borne in the faithful beak of the returning dove-bird? Long before 
discovered the raven over his chamber door, that sombre bird had fed the perse- — 
cuted prophet in the wilderness, while another, by his cackling, had saved Rome. 
Poets, of all ages, have drawn their sweetest inspirations from their knowledge 
of the birds, from Job to Whittier. Prophets clothe angels, cherubim and sera- 
phim, of their mystic revelations, with their wings. 
By the direction of the flight of aquatic birds over ice floes and arctic eatin 
as well as the contents of their crops, science has recently gathered a new prom- 
ise of finding an open polar sea. 
And so, from the eventful morning of creation until now, the bird has been — 
conspicuous in almost every department of human events. 
Before proceeding to speak of those of Minnesota in particular, let us briefly 
inquire, What are birds? 
A complete answer to this question would consume too much time for this 
occasion, however profitable its consideration might be to you, or however grati- 
fying it might be to me; yet, for many reasons, that will become obvious as we 
pass along, it will be desirable to Lave brought before us in a general way, their 
relations to the rest of the animal kingdom. To do so, we shall be under the 
necessity of referring to the classification of animals as a whole. Let us use a 
figure, which, if not the best that might have been chosen, and deficient in many 
respects, is still sufficiently appropriate to serve our present purpose. It shall be 
that of a tree. Let the trunk represent the entire animal kingdom. It has 
scarcely risen above the earth before it is divided into two huge lesser trunks or 
branches so dissimilar in almost every particular as to forbid belief that they 
spring from the same root, yet so they do, and science calls one the Vertebrate 
and the other the Invertebrate branch of the animal kingdom; the latter of which 
is a division with which we have nothing to do on this occasion. The former, as 
the name indicates, represents the entire list of animals possessed of a backbone. 
’ This is the typical feature of their structure, and is the revelation of a great plan. 
Tracing this branch of our tree a little higher, we see it has divided into four 
sub-branches, called classes. These classes unfold four different methods of 
executing the plan, and are named in the order ot rank upward, Fishes, Reptiles, 
Birds, Mammals. The fishes, like the others, have the backbone, but no arms, 
wings, or legs. They have appendages corresponding to legs and arms, called 
fins. 
Reptiles have a larger proportion of this typical bone, some of them so much 
that the Creator has withheld from them nearly everything else. Many of them, 
however, have legs, and nearly all equally inhabit land and water; but we find 
above the entire class another, occupying not only earth and water, but the air: 
the Birds. This is the third class in the ascending scale of the Vertebrates, and 
stands next to the Mammals, the highest, and the one which embraces our own 
species, or is completed in Man. 
Thus briefly have we sought and found the general relationship of the birds 
to the rest of the animal kingdom.. 
Of their earliest history very littie is known. Paleontologists, who look to the 
rocks for testimony about the remotest history of our planet, and depend upon 
fossiliferous remains of once living organisms for the numbering of the pages of 
