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the chest, the two anterior, and posterior thoracic. Three are in 

 front of the chest, and two behind it. From most of these, com- 

 munications are given off to the bones of the vertebral column, to 

 the humerus, to the thigh bones, to the breast bone, and to the ribs. 

 The organ of voice in singing birds is not tlie larynx, but the so- 

 called lower larynx or syrinx, which is developed where the trachea 

 divides into the two bronchial tubes, and is altogether a strange 

 structure to which some anatomists have given great attention. 

 Some young birds on being hatched are able to shift for themselves, 

 and are covered with down, while others are born naked and help- 

 less, and require food from their parents for some time. Of the 

 former section an ordinary chicken is a familiar example, while a 

 young thrush or a sparrow illustrates the latter. You may, 

 perhaps, many of you, have heard the expression " Pigeon's Milk." 

 For the first three days after the egg is hatched the parent bird 

 feeds the young one exclusively with a milky fluid which is formed 

 in the crop, hence the expression. 



Amongst the birds of prey we find that the female is generally a 

 larger and more powerful bird, and it therefore was preferred in 

 Falconry. As to the way in which Vultures discover their prey, the 

 opinion of naturalists has for a long time been divided, and contro- 

 versy has waxed hot upon the subject, the question being whether 

 the vulture possesses a more than usually keen sense of sight, or 

 whether his sense of smell is so powerful as to enable him to scent 

 a decaying carcase at a greater distance than other birds can do. 

 The experience of various travellers seems to prove that both senses 

 are possessed in no ordinary degree, but that it is by their keen 

 sight that vultures generally find their food. Supposing that an 

 animal is wounded, and escapes from the hunter, his course is 

 marked by a vulture soaring high in the air ; another circling far 

 away on the horizon sees the first bird fly down, and follows in his 

 track, and so on, until a large company is feeding on the carcase. 

 This action of vultures is well described in Hiawatha, Book 

 xix. : — 



" Never stoops the soaring vulture 



On his quarry in the desert, 



On the sick or wounded bison, 



But another vulture, watching 



From his high aerial look-out. 



Sees the downward plunge, and follows ; 



And a thii-d pursues the second, 



Coining from the invisible et ler, 



First a speck, and then a vulture, 



Till the air is dark with pinions," 



Canon Tristram, in writing of Griffon vultures, says : — '• May we 

 not conjecture that the process is as follows : The bird that first 

 descries his quarry descends from his . levation at once ; another, 

 sweeping the horizon at a still greater distance, observes his 



