78 The Bird 
around toward the breast-bone—hints of something 
which perhaps has never occurred to us. We spoke of 
the worm-like appearance of the lowly Amphioxus— 
the sand-fish with the shadow of a back-bone. When we 
think of a worm we think of a creature very much alike 
from head to tail, one in which a section across the neck 
is not very unlike one across the centre of the body or 
near the tail; indeed that is exactly what the word Am- 
phioxus means,—like head, like tail. This repetition of 
segments or similar parts is a sign of low degree in the 
scale of life, as it harks back to the time when the very 
highest form of life was worm-like. 
The flesh of a salmon or of a trout shows such a con- 
dition very well, the body consisting of flake after flake 
of flesh. Now in birds and the higher animals this divi- 
sion into successive segments is hardly noticeable, and 
almost every inch of a man or bird, from head to toe, 
seems very distinct and individual. But ribs bring back 
the old ancestral condition very vividly, and when a 
peacock, strutting proudly before us, resplendent from 
beak to tail, picks up and swallows an unfortunate angle- 
worm, we may remember that, no matter what geological 
eras or inexplicable physical gulfs separate the two, the 
bird carries within his body indelible imprints which 
insolubly link his past with that of the lowly creature 
of the dust. 
As in various other cases throughout nature, when the 
many ribs of the bird’s ancestors began to be reduced in 
number, some attained to other uses beside that of arch- 
ing around the whole body and protecting the heart, the 
