150 BIEMBNTS or OENITHOLOGY. 



The Bodx and Tail. 



The Body of a bird forms, roughly speaking, an egg-shaped 

 mass. This may be somewhat laterally pressed in, or it may be 

 flattened from above downwards, these conditions being termed 

 (as in the analogous conditions of the bill) compressed or 

 depressed respectiyely. As in ourselves and in beasts, the body 

 has its dorsal and its ventral region. The former is sometimes 

 called the notceum and the latter the gastrceum. The feathers 

 of the belly are generally softer than those of the back. The 

 surface of the back taken together with the dorsal, or upper, 

 surface of the wings is also sometimes spoken of as the mantle. 

 The feathers which grow on the shoulders are named scapulars 

 or scapularies, and, of course, the space between them is the 

 interscapular region. The part immediately behind this is 

 sometimes distinguished as the lowei- iacJc or tergum, and behind 

 this comes the rump or uropygium. 



The ventral region would seem hardly to need description, 

 such simple terms as pectoral, abdominal, and lateral apparently 

 explaining themselves. Tet confusion has arisen, so that it is 

 necessary to point out that the breast, or pectoral region, is the 

 part over the sternum, behind which is the abdomen, and in 

 front of which is the prepectus. The term " crissum " is one 

 which is variously, and therefore rather misleadingly, applied to 

 a region it may be desired to distinguish, and which is in near 

 proximity to the' vent. It is best applied to feathers just behind 

 the vent, that is to the more anteriorly situated of those feathers 

 which we shall soon describe — amongst those of the tail — as 

 " under tail-coverts." 



Tail. — The tail of a bird, in the ordinary acceptation of the 

 term, means the collection of more or less strong, more or less 

 elongated feathers which are implanted into the skin of the 

 hinder end of the body. But ^evidently this " tail " has no re- 

 lation to what we mean by a " tail," when we speak of the tail 

 of a beast. Moreover, as we shall soon see, elongated con- 

 spicuous feathers, commonly called the tail of certain birds, do 

 not correspond with the tail-feathers which other birds possess. 

 The tail of a beast, for example of a Cat, consists of a firm 

 bony basis surrounded with flesh and sinew and invested by the 

 skin. Such a tail always exists in birds, but it is a very 

 different structure from what is ordinarily called " a bird's tail." 



Most aquatic beasts, and other backboned animals which 



