520 BIRDS. 



The Kiwi {Apteryx) forms a very distinct genus of Ratitpe, represented 

 by four species, restricted to New Zealand. It is not larger than a 

 hen, and has simple hair-like or bristle-like feathers, a long bill and ter- 

 minal nostrils, a very rudimentary wing and no clavicles, and no distinct 

 tail feathers. It is a nocturnal bird, swift and noiseless in its move- 

 ments, feeding in great part on earthworms. The egg is very large for 

 the size of the bird. 



Among the extinct forms are the gigantic Moas (Dinornis), which 

 seem to have been exterminated in New Zealand in comparatively 

 recent times (in all likelihood, during the latter part of the eighteenth 

 century). The fore-limbs were almost completely reduced, the hind-legs 

 were very large, and some forms attained a height of ten feet or even more. 



Another recently lost order of giant birds is represented by remains of 

 ^pyornis found in Madagascar. Some of these indicate birds as large 

 as ostriches, but eggs have been found holding six times as much as that 

 of ostrich. 



We must think of the Ratitte, according to W. K. Parker, as " over- 

 grown, degenerate birds that were once on the right road for becoming 

 flying fowl, but through greediness and idleness never reached the 

 'goal,' went back, indeed, and lost their sternal keel, and almost lost 

 their unexercised wings. " 



Order 3. Carinatse. Flying-Birds with a keeled breast-bone. 



(a) With teeth. Odontornithse. Extinct Carinate birds, with bicon- 

 cave vertebree, with teeth in distinct sockets, with the rami of the lower 

 jaw loosely united. The only certain example is Ichtkyarnis from the 

 N. American Cretaceous strata. 



(b) Without teeth. The flying-birds of post-Cretaceous times, and of 

 to-day. 



The detailed classification of Birds is difficult. There are so many 

 that ornithologists have not yet been able to decipher all their relation- 

 ships. It ^ is only of recent years that anatomists like Huxley, and 

 embryologists like Parker, have placed the classification on a secure 

 foundation. 



For though the old classification of birds into snatchers (Raptores), 

 perchers (Insessores), climbers (Scansores), scratchers (Rasores), stilt- 

 walkers (Grallatores), and swimmers (Natatores), was interesting and 

 suggestive, yet it is easy to understand that an arrangement of this sort 

 inay be misleading, since birds of entirely different structure may have 

 similar habits. 



Huxley classified birds according to the structure of their skulls, and 

 though this might seem a one-sided method of classification, its natural- 

 ness depends, as Parker notes, on the striking fact that "the structure 

 of the skull and face govern the whole body, as it were ; every other 

 part of the organism corresponds to what is observable there." 



Huxley's classification, slightly altered by Parker, is as follows :— 



A. The vomer broad behind, and interposing between the pterygoids, 

 the palatines, and the basisphenoidal rostrum :— Drom^o- 



GNATH^. 



The Tinamous. 



