Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-03-09
Birds That Do Not Fly.

The most apparently distinctive feature
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 a great many
birds that do not fy-and it is among
these terrestrial or swimming kinds that
we must look for the nearest modern APP
prOaches to the primitive bird type. From
the very beginning birds had to endure
the fierce competition Of the mammals,
which had been developed at a slightly
earlier periOd and they have for the
mOstpart taken almost entirely to the air,
where alone they possess a distinct
superiority over their mammalian CON-
peers. There are certain spots, however.
where mammals have been unable to
penetrate, as in oceanic islands; and there
are certain other spots which were insu-
lated for a long period from the great con-
tinents, so that they possessed none of the
higher classes of mammals, as in the case
of Australia, South America, New Zea-
land, and South Africa. In these dis
tricts terrestrial birds had chance
which they had not in the great circum-
polar land tract, now divided into two
portions, North America on the west, and
Asia and Europe on the east. 1t is in
Australia and the southern eXtremities
of America and Africa, therefore, that we
must look for the most Anticipated forms
Of birds still surviving in the world at the
present day. The decadent and now al
most extinct order of struthOus birds, to
which ostriches and cassOwaries belong,
supplies us with the best examples of
such antique forms. These birds are all
distinguished from every other known
species, except the transitional SOlen-
hOfen creature and few other old types,
by the fact that they have no keel to the
fiat breast bone, a popularity which at
once marks them out as not adapted for
flight Every one whose anatomical
studies have been carried on as far as the
carving of a chicken or a pheasant for
dinner knows that the 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 a keel is
wanting and the breast-bOne is rounded
and blunt. At one time these flat chest
ed 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 multi
piled and replenished 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 Shep-
pey and the great divers of the Western
States died slowly out, leaving all their
modern kindred to inhabit the less pro-
gresslYe southern hemisphere alone.
Even there, the monstrOus epyornis, a
huge stalking wingless bird. disappeared
from Madagascar in the tertiary age,
while the great moa of New Zealand
after living down to almost historical
times, fell victim at last to that very
aggressive and hungry mammal. the
Maori himself. This almost reduces the
existing struthiOus types to three small
and scattered colonies, in Australasia.
South Africa, and South America respect
lively, though there are still probably a
few ostriches left in some remote parts of
the Asiatfc continent