The Brookhaven leader., 1884-10-30

The most apparently distinctive fea-
ture of birds lies in the fact that they
hy. 1t is this that gives them their
feathers, their wings, and their peculiar
bony structure. And yet, truism as
such statement sounds, there are q
great many birds that do not 1y-apd
It is among these terrestrial or swim
ming kinds that we must look for the
nearest modern approaches to the prim-
tive bird type. From the very begin
ming, birds had to endure the fierce
competition of the mammals, which
had been developed at the slightly
earlier period; and they have for the
most part taken almost entirely TO the
air, where alone they possess distinct
superiority over their mammalian CON-
peers. There are certain spots, how
ever, where mammals have been un-
able to penetrate. as | L oceanic islands;
and there are certain other spots which
were insulated for long period from
the great continents. so that they pos
sessed none of the higher classes of
mammals, as in the case of Australia,
South America, New Zealand and South
Africa. In these districts terrestrial
birds had chance which they had not
in a great circumpolar land tract, now
divided into two portions. North Amer
lea on the west, and Asia and Europe
on the east. 1t is in Australia and the
southern eXtremities of Ameyia and AZ
RIGA, therefore. that we must look for the
most antiquated forms of birds still sur
viving in the world at the present day.
The decadent and now almost extinct
order of strutbious birds, to which os-
triches and cassowaries belong, sup
plies us with the best examples of such
antique forms. These birds are all dis
tinguished from every other known
species, except the transitional Solen-
hofen creature and q few other old
types, by the fact that they have no
keel to the fiat breast bone, a peculiar
ity which at once marks them out as not
adapted for flight. Every one whose
anator.ical studies have been carried on
as far as the carving of n chicken or a
pheasant for dinner, knows that t.. C two
halves of the breast are divided by a
sharp keel or edge protruding from the
breast-bone, but in the ostrich and their
allies such keel is wanting and the
DTtdSt-DOuc 10 IOuIUtN al
one time these flat-chested birds were
widely distributed over the whole world.
for they are found in fossil forms from
China to Peru, but as the mammalian
race increased and multiplied and re.
plenished the earth, only the best
adapted keeled birds were able to hold
their own against these four-legged
competitors in the great continents
Thus the gigantic ostriches OF the Isle
of Sheppey and the great divers Of th'
Western States died slowly out, leav
ing all their modern kindred to inhabi
the less progressive southern hemi
sphere alone. Even there, the mon
strous @pyornis, huge stalking wing
less bird, disappeared from Madagas
car in the tertiary age, while the grea
moa of New Zealand, after living dowr
to almost historical times, fell a victim
at last to that very aggressive snt
hungry mammal, the Maori himself
This almost reduces the existing struth
ious types 10 three small and scattered
colonies, in Australasia, South Afric,
and South America respectively, though
there are still probably few ostriche'
left in some remote parts of the Asiatic
continent.--Longnnan's Magazine.