INTRODUCTION TO BIRDS. 253 



hension, and yet there is always something in the nature 

 of the highest of created beings, man, that urges him 

 ever forward toward a fuller understanding of life, its 

 powers and individuality of action, as manifested in 

 plant or worm, insect, bird, or man. 



At the head of the animal half of the life kingdom is 

 man, and below him, other numerous, and some of them 

 scarcely less wonderful mammals, as the horse, the dog, 

 the elephant, and the fox. 



As to the place of birds in the animal kingdom, 

 they stand just, below mammals and just above reptiles; 

 and more closely allied to reptiles than they are to 

 mammals in points of structure, but more closely approach- 

 ing man in sense development. Taken as a class, the Aves 

 are more clearly defined than any other group of the 

 higher animals.^ The birds most unlike each other are 

 still more closely allied than are the varjdng life forms 

 among the fishes, the reptiles, or the mammals. 



There is good evidence that birds had reptilian 

 relatives in the good old Jurassic days, and to one of them 

 was given the not unmusical name of Archaeopteryx, a 

 name which means ancient bird. Two specimens of this 

 bird have been found, and both of them in the slates of 

 Solenhofen in Bavaria. One of them is now preserved 

 in the British museum, and the other in the museum of 

 Berlin. It had the feet, the. limb bones, and the beak 

 of a bird; but the beak was set with strong teeth. The 

 tail was as long as the rest of the backbone put together ; 

 and the vertebral bones extended on down into the tail, 

 and from these the feathers came off in pairs, one feather 

 on each side. (Fig. 98.) 



The Archaeopteryx was about the size of a crow, and 

 probably climbed trees by means of the hook at the 



