BRITISH BIRDS. 



THE ANATOMY OF A BIRD. 



IT is very important that every one who studies birds should have 

 some acquaintance with their insides as well as with their outsides. 

 To have a proper appreciation of the mechanism of flight, the most 

 distinctive attribute of a bird, we must explore the air reservoirs and 

 muscles, which combine, with other organs, to form a complicated, 

 but exquisitely adjusted, system. It is true that other animals show 

 a similar adaptation to their several modes of life, but in a bird the 

 necessities of life seem to have produced a more obvious and 

 striking harmony between structure and habit. Furthermore, the 

 young ornithologist should not be content with gaining the ability 

 to recognise the different kinds of birds : he should understand their 

 mutual relations, and the place of a bird in Nature. To form an 

 opinion about these matters needs more than an acquaintance with 

 the colours and outward form, and with the eggs and nest. A great 

 deal can be learnt from these characters, but they are at most only 

 useful in linking together closely related species. All the members 

 of the extensive tribe of parrots, for example, are bound together by 

 their hooked bills, their white eggs, their grasping feet, &c. But we 

 want to go further, and determine what are the relations of the 

 parrots to other birds which differ totally from them in all outward 

 and visible signs. To solve, or rather to attempt to solve, broader 

 questions of this kind we must have recourse to the scalpel, and 

 even to the microscope. Besides, there not only are birds, but there 

 were birds, which have now passed away utterly, leaving behind 

 only a few bones embedded in the rocks. Nothing of an external 



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