112 
GENEBAL ORNITHOLOGY. 
in form and function. The whole of the existing RatitcE have rudimentary or very imperfect 
wings, as was the case with the Cretaceous Hesperornis ; but the contemporary of the latter, 
Icthyornis, and the still more ancient Archceopteryx, appear both to have had excellent ones. 
The disposition of the remiges in their mutual relations is very noteworthy. They have 
a rigid hollow barrel of great resistant powers, considering the amount of substance, — just 
like the cylindrical stem of the cereal plant; a stout, solid, highly elastic shaft; the outer web 
narrower than the inner, with its barbs set at a more acute angle upon the shaft. Any one 
of these stiffer outer vanes overlies the broader and more yielding inner vane of the next outer 
feather, which, on receiving the impact of air from below, resists as it were with the strength of 
a second shaft superimposed. Though the ''way of an eagle in the air'' was a mystery to the 
wise man of old, the mechanics of ordinary flight are now better understood. But the sailing 
of some birds for an indefinite length of time, up as well as down, without visible motion of 
the wings, and without reference to the wind, remains an enigma. The flight of the albatross 
and turkey vulture, I venture to aflfirm, is not yet explained. The riddle of The Wing will be 
read when we know how the archsaurian escaped from ilus to aether. 
The number of true remiges ranges from about sixteen, as in a humming-bird, to up- 
wards of fifty, as in the albatross. Their shape is quite uniform, minor details aside. They 
are the stiffest, strongest, most perfectly pennaceous of feathers, without evident hyporhachis, 
if any. They are generally lanceolate, that is, tapering regularly and gradually to an obtuse 
point, though not infrequently more parallel- sided, especially those of the secondary and 
tertiary series. Either or both webs may be incised toward the end; that is, more or less 
abruptly narrowed ; this is called emargination (see fig. 279) ; their ends may be transversely 
or obliquely truncate, or nicked in various ways. In a few birds, apparently for purposes of 
sexual ornamentation, they are developed in bizarre shapes of beauty, with evident decrease of 
utility as flight-feathers. Those of the ostrich and penguin tribes share the peculiarities of the 
general plumage of tliese extraordinary birds. Remiges are divided into three classes or series, 
according to where they grow upon the limb, whether upon the hand, the fore-arm, or the 
upper arm. In this distinction is involved one of the most important considerations of practical 
ornithology, of which the student must make himself master. The three classes of quill- 
feathers are: 1. the primaries ; 2. the secondaries ; 3. the tertiaries. 
The Primaries (Fig. 30, V) are those remiges which grow upon the pinion, or hand- 
and finger-bones collectively (fig. 27, C to D). Whatever the total number of the remiges 
may be, in nearly all birds ivith true remiges the Primaries are either nine or ten in number. 
The humming-bird with sixteen remiges, the albatross witli fifty or more, each have ten 
primaries. The grebes and a few other birds are said to have eleven primaries : if this be so, 
it is at any rate highly exceptional. No instance of a higher number than this is known 
to me. Again, it is only among the highest Passeres that the number nine is found, the 
Oscines having indifferently nine or ten. In a good many Oscines, rated as nine- prim aried, 
there are actually ten, though the outermost is so rudimentary, and even out of allignment 
with the developed primaries, that it is not counted as one of them. Among Oscines, just this 
difference of one evident and unquestionable primary more or less forms one of the best distinc- 
tions between the families of that suborder. So the tenth feather in a bird's wing, counting 
from the outside, becomes a crucial test in many cases ; for, if it be last primary, the bird is 
one thing ; if it be first secondary, the bird is another. In such cases the necessity, therefore, 
of determining exactly which it is becomes evident. Of course it is always possible to settle 
the question by striking at the roots of the remiges and seeing how many are seated on the 
pinion ; but this generally involves some defacing of the specimen, and there is usually an 
easier way of determining. Hold the wing half-spread : then, in most Oscines, the primaries 
come sloping down on one side, and the secondaries similarly on the other, to form where they 
