A Bird's- Eye View 



wild regions, called for truly heroic treatment. 

 Thus, in camping out, he says it repeatedly 

 happened, after he had cooked his meat, and 

 not having any salt, that he used gunpowder 

 for seasoning ! 



The scientific excuse for putting the lofty 

 flamingo into the lowly company of ducks, etc. , 

 is in the fact that this towering bird has, in 

 common with them, what probably no other 

 birds at present possess — two rows of small 

 projections along the inner edges of the bill, 

 apparently the lingering remains of a dental 

 apparatus once enjoyed by this class of beings. 

 For the reader must know that, in olden times, 

 birds had our own troublesome convenience of 

 teeth, the evidence of which is found in skele- 

 tons of the Cretacean epoch. 



The families thus far named in the " swim- 

 ming group," especially swans, are but slightly 

 aerial; but we now reach the most peculiar type 

 of all, the penguin, "the flightless sea bird," 

 with almost rudimentary wings, quite like the 

 flippers of a cetacean, without quills, but mov- 

 ing freely at the shoulder-joint, so that they 

 serve as paddles in the water, where they are 

 usually worked alternately, in rotatory motion. 

 This singular creature, of which there are sev- 



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