The Framework of the Bird 73 
skeleton of a bird are more or less soldered together, 
yet the neck is far more flexible than in either of the 
other examples. Indeed the neck of a bird has greater 
freedom of motion than that of a snake. A lizard can 
turn his head only a little way around, and we ourselves 
can look only across our shoulder, but with a bird it is 
Fig. 50.—American Egret, showing curves into which the neck naturally falls 
when the bird is at rest. When striking at a fish the vertebre straighten 
out. 
very different. Watch a heron or, better still, a fla- 
mingo and see its neck describe figures of eight as he 
arranges the feathers on its back. Few people would 
ever imagine that there are exactly twice as many neck- 
bones in a sparrow as in a giraffe, but such is the case, 
there being fourteen in the former and seven in the latter. 
In the neck of a swan there are twenty-three of these 
bones. 
