212 AVES. 



Class H. — AVES. (The Birds.) 



A Bird may be defined as an air-breathing vertebrate with a 

 covering of feathers ; warm blood ; a complete double circulation ; 

 the two anterior limbs (wings) adapted for flying or swimming, the 

 two posterior limbs (legs) adapted for walking or swimming; respi- 

 ration never effected by gills or branchiaB, but, after leaving the egg, 

 by lungs, which are connected with air cavities in various parts of 

 the body. Reproduction by eggs, which are fertilized within the 

 body and hatched externally, either by incubation or exposure to 

 the heat of the sun ; the shell calcareous, hard and brittle. 



Much more might be added, but the obvious character is this : 

 All Birds have feathers, and no other animal has feathers, or, as 

 Stejneger puts it, " A bird is known by its feathers." There is 

 probably no other character of importance which distinguishes 

 birds living and extinct as a whole, from the Reptilia. 



The classification of this group, as of most others, is still in an 

 unsettled condition. Strictly speaking, the existing members of 

 the class are so closely related that they might, with propriety, be 

 combined into one order, which, by Professor Gill, has been named 

 EuRHiPiDURiE. At present, however, the term "order" maybe 

 applied to the groups so designated below, without thereby imply- 

 ing any structural differences such as separate the " orders " of 

 Eeptiles or even of Fishes. The Eurhipidurce are made a sub- 

 class by Stejneger, while Coues divides them into two " sub-classes," 

 the RatitCE (Ostriches, etc.), and the Carinata;. To the Carinatce, 

 characterized by the keeled sternum and more or less developed 

 wings, all American birds belong. (Lat., avis, bird.) 



The " orders " of the Carinate Birds, as now adopted, are rather 

 temporary, pending investigation of certain groups. They are also 

 in a degree conventional, some of them being admittedly unnatural 

 in their composition, while none of them represent any such struc- 

 tural differences or differences of such long standino- in time as 

 those which characterize the orders of Mammals or Reptiles, or most 

 of the orders of Fishes. For reasons which have been elsewhere 

 given, I follow in this work without exception the classification, 

 sequence, and nomenclature adopted by the American Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union. A system in some respects more in accord with 



