552 DAN BEARD'S ANIMAL BOOK 



aviators would call a glider, a machine with no power 

 of continued flight. 



Away back somewhere in the past, when the litho- 

 graphic stone was soft mud, there was a bunch of other 

 experimenters. They started out in a different line. 

 They had the membrane running from the root of the 

 thumb to the shoulder like the modern bat, and modern 

 birds, but the fingers of the hand were free, and from 

 their forearm they developed feathers. They had a tail 

 like a rat with feathers growing on each side cf it. It 



Sketch of Foot of Man and Horse 



would be flattery to call these things birds, and it may 

 be stretching a point to call them reptiles. 



They bear the same relation to our modern birds as 

 do the first experiments of steam to a modern locomo- 

 tive; or as Franklin's electrical kite to a modern electric 

 motor car. But let us inspect some modern birds 

 that we may see without visiting a museum. If 

 you will take a Thanksgiving turkey, for instance, 

 before it is carved, or a common barnyard chicken, and 

 examine it carefully, you will find that the wing corre- 

 sponds, bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, with your 

 own arm and hand. The hand of a bird is welded to- 

 gether or enclosed in a sort of fleshy mitten, but the 

 thumb is distinct, as it is in your own mitten that you 



