THE OEOWKED GOUBA PIGEOK. 



PIGEONS. 



STEUCTURE OP BIRDS IN RELATION TO THEIR PLIGHT, 



It may not be out of place here to offer a few remarks on 

 the wonderftil mechanism which enables birds to wing their 

 course so rapidly through the air. The feathers are so placed 

 as to overlap each other; like the slates or the tiles on the roof 

 of a house. They are also arranged irom the fore-part back- 

 wards; by which the animals are enabled the more conve- 

 niently to cut their way through the' air. Their bones are 

 tubular or hollow, and extremely light compared with those 

 of terrestrial animals. This greatly facilitates their risipg from 

 the earth, whilst their heads, being comparatively small, their 

 biUs shaped like a wedge, their bodies slender, sharp below, 

 and round above, — aJl these present a union- of conditions, 

 favourable, in every way, to cutting a passage through 

 the aerial element, to which they are considered as more 

 peculiarly to belong. With all these conditions, however, birds 

 could not fly without wings. These, therefore, are the instru- 

 ments by which they have the power of rapid locomotion, and 

 2 asi 



