92 GENERAL ORNITHOLOGY. 



accomplish their office by running through pulleys to change the line of their traction. They 

 work like men hoisting sails from the deck of a vessel ; and thus, hke a ship's cargo, a bird's 

 chief weight is kept below the centre of motion. Top-heaviness is further obviated by the way 

 in. which birds with a long heavy neck and head draw these parts in upon the breast, and 

 extend the legs behind, as is well shown by the attitude of a heron flying. The nice adjust- 

 ment of balance by the variable extension of the head and feet is exactly like that produced in 

 weigliing by shifting a weight along the arm of a steel-yard ; and together with the slinging 

 of the chief weight under the wings instead <.if over or even between them, enables a bird to 

 easily keep right side up in flight. The 



Exterior of a Bird is divided for pui-poses of description into seven parts ; — 1. The head 

 (Lat. caput) ; 2. The neck (Lat. collum.) ; 3. The body proper, or trunk (Lat. trimcus) ; 4. 

 The bill or beak (Lat. rostrum) ; 5. The -wings (Lat. pi. ala-) ; 6. The tail (Lat. cauda) ; 7- 

 The feet (Lat. pi. pedes). Of these, 1, 2, 3, tlie head, neck, and trunk, are collectively termed 

 the body (Lat. corpus), in distinction frou^ 4, 5, 6, 7, which arc the members (Lat. memhra). 

 The wings and feet are of course double or paired parts. The bill is strictly but a part of the 

 head ; but its manifold uses as an organ of prehension make it functionally a hand, and there- 

 fore one of the "members." The 



Head has the general shape of a four-sided pyramid ; of which the base is applied to the 

 end of the necl-c, therefore not appearing from the exterior, and the apex of which is frustrated 

 at the base of the bill. The uppermost side is mcjre or less convex or vaulted, sloping in 

 every direction ; the under side is tiattish and horizontal ; the lateral surfaces are flattisli and 

 vertical; all similarly taper forward. The departures from any such typical shape are endless 

 in degree and variable in kind, giving rise to numerous general descriptive terms, such as 

 "head flattened," "head globular," but not susceptible of exact definition. The head is 

 moulded, of course, upon the skull, corresponding in a general waj' to the brain-cavity of the 

 cranium proper, both in size and shape ; but it differs in several particulars. In the first place, 

 there is the scaftVdding of the jaws; secondly, large excavations to receive the eye-balls, and 

 smaller ones for the ear-parts; thirdly, muscular anasses overlying the bone; and lastly, in 

 some birds, large hollow spaces in the bone between the inner and outer tables or plates of the 

 cranial walls. Each side of the head presents two openings for the eye (Lat. ocuhts) and ear 

 (Lat. aiiris), the position of which is variable, both absolutely and in relation to each other. 

 But in the vast majority of binls, the eye is strictly lateral in situation, and near the middle of 

 the side of the head ; while the ear is behind and a little below the eye, near the articulation 

 ' (if the lower jaw. But the shape of the skull iif owls is such, that tlie eyes are dfrected forward, 

 and such birds are said to have " eyes anterior." Owls also have enormous outer ears, in some 

 cases provided with a movable flap or conch, closing upon the opening like the lid of a box ; 

 and in many cases their ear -parts, and some of the cranium itself, is unsymmetrical. Li 

 most birds the ear-opening is quite small, and only covered by modified feathers. In the 

 woodcock and snipe, owing to the way the brain-box is tilted up, the ears arc below and not 

 Ijehind the ej-es. The mouth (Lat. o.s, gen. oris) is always a fissure across the front of the head. 

 The cleavage varies, both in extent and direction; tlie latter is usually horizontal, or nearly 

 S(j, but may trend much downward ; the former varies from a niiniuum, in which the cleft does 

 not reach back of the horny part of the bill, as in a snipe, to the maximum seen in fissure-billed 

 birds like the swifts and gfiatsuckers, which gape almost from ear to ear. There are no other 

 openings in the head ]iroper, for the nostrils arc always in the bUl. The 



Neck, in effect, is a simple cylinder, rendered somewhat hour-glass-shaped, as above said. 

 It consists of a movable chain of bones, tlie cervical vertebnc (Lat. cervix, the neck; verto, I 



