CHAP. XVI 



Backboned Animals 



267 



stages before they attain to the possession of wings and the enjoy- 

 ment of freedom. 



The great majority of birds are fliers, and possess a keeleil 

 breast-bone, to which are fixed the muscles used in flight. To 

 this keel or carina they owe their name Carinatne. The flying 

 host includes the gullj and grebes, the plovers and cranes, the 

 ducks and geese, the storks and herons, the pelicans and cormo- 

 rants, the partridges and pheasants, the sand grouse, the pigeons, 

 the birds of prey, the parrots, the pies, and about 6000 Passerine or 

 sparrow-like birds, including thrushes and warblers, wrens and 

 swallows, finches and crows, starlings and birds of paradise. To 

 these orders we have to adil Opis/hofo/i/iis, from which it is perhaps 

 easier to pass to some of the keeled fossil birds, some of which 

 possessed teeth. 



Distinct from the keeled fliers, both ancient and modern, 

 are the running-birds, which 

 are incapable of flight, and 

 therefore possess a flat raft- 

 like breast bone, to whicli 

 they owe their title Ratita;. 

 Nowadays these are few in 

 number, the Ostrich and the 

 Rhea, the Cassowary and 

 Emu, and the small Kiwi, 

 lieside these must be ranked 

 the giant Moa of New Zea- 

 land, not long extinct, and 

 the more ancient, not less 

 gigantic y-Epyontis of Mada- 

 gascar, while farther back 

 still, from the Chalk strata 

 of America, the remains of 

 toothed keelless birds have 

 been disentombed. 



The most reptilian, least 

 bird -like of birds is the 

 oldest fossil of all, placed in 

 a sub-class by itself, the 

 Ai'clucopteryx (lit. ancient 

 bird) from strata of Jurassic 

 age. 



9. Mammalia.— Of the 

 highest class of animals — the Mammalia — I need say least for they 

 are most familiar. Most of them are terrestrial, four-footed, and 

 hairy. Bats and whales, seals and sea-cows, are obviously excep- 



Fit;. 57. — Restoration of the extiact niua {Din- 

 ornis ingetu), and alongside of it the little 

 kiwi {A^ieryx tnantelli). (F'rom Cham- 

 bers's £'«c>'c/<?/. ; after F. v. Hochstetter.) 



