B I R D-L I E E. 
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PART I.—PHYSICAL LIFE. 
CHAPTER I. 
THE BODY. 
“ Birds, the free tenants of land, air and ocean, 
Their forms all symmetry, their motions grace; 
In plumage delicate and beautiful, 
Thick without burden, close as fishes’ scales, 
Or loose as full-blown poppies to the breeze.” 
Montgomery. 
A mere external survey of the bird at once determines 
its rank as a being of a high class. That it holds only the 
second place amongst living creatures is true. Nor is this 
too much to say when one considers that man alone, with 
the exception of some few other mammals, surpasses it in 
powers of intelligence; while its bodily structure forms a 
most harmonious whole. At the same time, it is scarcely 
right to speak of the bird as more highly gifted and better 
equipped than most mammals; for, taken strictly, each 
animal is in keeping with the interior economy and 
external circumstances which make it what it is. With 
this object, too, every being is always adapted in the most 
efficient manner to serve the purposes of its existence, 
and each and all fulfil the ends demanded by their lives. 
We can only look upon the origin of an animal as the 
product of a certain combination of active powers not yet 
B 
