INTRODUCTION. 



IT is not necessary in a book of this character to 

 enter into minute details as to the anatomy and 

 physiology of birds, important as these are to a 

 thorough comprehension of bird-life as a whole. We 

 will pass over, too, the subject of the relationship 

 borne by this class of animals to the other great 

 groups of the animate world. 



It is sufficient to say that birds are known instantly 

 by their feathers, a covering not to be confounded 

 with any other, and peculiar to them. Birds, as we 

 know, are creatures of flight, but so are insects and 

 some of our mammals, and indeed, in whatever way 

 we propose to distinguish this group from the others, 

 it will be found that there are some exceptions to be 

 made, but not one in the matter of the first distinctive 

 feature that I have mentioned, that of feathers, which 

 are beautiful in themselves because of their delicate 

 structure, and often so exquisitely colored that they 

 rival the richest orchids of the tropical jungle. 



Feathers in some respects are so far like the hair 

 of mammals that a close relationship in their nature 

 has been confidently asserted ; but it is now generally 

 agreed that the true relationship is with the scales of 

 reptiles, and this is the more probable, in that the 

 general relationship between reptiles and birds is very 



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