V 



BIRDS OF OLD 



" With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way, 

 And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies." 



When we come to discuss the topic of the earliest 

 bird not the one in the proverb our choice of sub- 

 jects is indeed limited, being restricted to the famous 

 and oft-described Archseopteryx from the quarries of 

 Solenhofen, which at present forms the starting-point 

 in the history of the feathered race. Bird-like, or at 

 least feathered, creatures, must have existed before this, 

 as it is improbable that feathers and flight were acquired 

 at one bound, and this lends probability to the view that 

 at least some of the tracks in the Connecticut Valley 

 are really the footprints of birds. Not birds as we now 

 know them, but still creatures wearing feathers, these 

 being the distinctive badge and livery of the order. For 

 we may well speak of the feathered race, the exclusive 

 prerogative of the bird being not flight but feathers ; no 

 bird is without them, no other creature wears them, so 

 that birds may be exactly defined in two words, 

 feathered animals. Reptiles, and even mammals, may 

 go quite naked or cover themselves with a defensive 

 armor of bony plates or horny scales; but under the 

 blaze of the tropical sun or in the chill waters of arctic 

 seas birds wear feathers only, although in the penguins 

 the feathers have become so changed that their identity 

 is almost lost. 



So far as flight goes, there is one entire order of mam- 

 mals, whose members, the bats, are quite as much at 

 home in the air as the birds themselves, and in bygone 

 days the empire of the air belonged to the pterodactyls ; 

 even frogs and fishes have tried to fly, and some of the 

 latter have nearly succeeded in the attempt. As for 



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