The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-06-13

The most apparently distinctive fea-
ture OF birds lies in the fact that they
fly. 1t is this that gives them their
feathers, their wings, and their peculiar
bony structure. And yet, truism as
such a statement sounds, there are q
great many birds that do not tly-and
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 a distinct
superiority over their mammalian COM
peers. There are certain spots, how
ever, where mammals have been I'M
able to penetrate, as in 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
South America, New Zealand and South
Africa. In these districts terrestrial
birds haa'a chance which they had not
in d 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 eXtremties Of Ameria and AT
RIGA, therefore, thatwe must look for the
most antiquated forms of birds still sur
yiving in the world at the present day.
The decadent and now almost extinct
order of struthious birds, to which o.
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 a few other old
types, by the fact that they have no
keel to the fiat breast-bone, peculiar
ity which at once marks them out as not
adapted for flight. Every one whose
anatomical studies have been carried or
as far AS the carving of a chicken or &
pheasant for dinner, knows that Tie two
halves of the breast are divided by s
sharp keel or edge protruding from thu
breast-bone, but in the ostrich and theil
allies such keel is wanting and the
breast-bone is rounded and blunt. Al
one time these flat-chested birds We're
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 bes
adapted keeled birds were able to hole
their own against these four-legget
competitors in the great continents
Thus the gigantic ostriches of the Isl,
Of Sheppey and the great divers of tn,
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 epyornis, huge stalking wing
less bird disappeared from Madagas
car in the tertiary age, while the grea
moa of New Zealand, after living dow
to almost historical times, fell victim
at last to that very aggressive ant
hungry mammal, the Maori himself
This almost reduces the existing struth
ious types to three small and scatteret
colonies, in Australasia, South Afric
and South America respectively, thougl
there are still probably few ostriche
| left in some remote parts of the Asiati
/ continent, -L0ngmd1a' s Magazine.