. Animals of the past, an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. Fig. 12. — A Tooth of Zeuglodon, one of the YokeTeeth, from which it derives the name. BIRDS OF OLD With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his snmis, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, orjlies. When we come to discuss the topic of the ear-liest bird—not the one in the proverb — ourchoice of subjects is indeed limited, being re-stricted to the famous and oft-described Archse-opterpi from the quarries of Solenhofen, whichat present forms the starting-point in the his-tory of the feathered race. Bird-like, or
. Animals of the past, an account of some of the creatures of the ancient world. Fig. 12. — A Tooth of Zeuglodon, one of the YokeTeeth, from which it derives the name. BIRDS OF OLD With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his snmis, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, orjlies. When we come to discuss the topic of the ear-liest bird—not the one in the proverb — ourchoice of subjects is indeed limited, being re-stricted to the famous and oft-described Archse-opterpi from the quarries of Solenhofen, whichat present forms the starting-point in the his-tory of the feathered race. Bird-like, or atleast feathered, creatures, must have existedbefore this, as it is improbable that feathersand flight were acquired at one bound, andthis lends probabihty to the view that at leastsome of the tracks in the Connecticut Valleyare reaUy the footprints of birds. Not birds aswe now know them, but stiU creatures wearingfeathers, these being the distinctive badge andlivery of the order. For we may well speak TO. Fig. 13. —Archaeopteryx, the Earliest Known the specimen in the Berlin Museum. BIRDS OF OLD 71 of the feathered race, the exclusive prerogativeof the bird being not flight but feathers; nobird is without them, no other creature wearsthem, so that birds may be exactly defined intwo words, feathered animals. Reptiles, andeven mammals, may go quite naked or coverthemselves with a defensive armor of bonyplates or horny scales; but under the blaze ofthe tropical sun or in the chiU waters of arcticseas birds wear feathers only, although in thepenguins the feathers have become so changedthat their identity is almost lost. So far as flight goes, there is one entire orderof mammals, whose members, the bats, arequite as much at home in the air as the birdsthemselves, and in bygone days the empire ofthe air belonged to the pterodactyls; even frogsand fishes have tried to fly, and some of thelatter have nearly succeeded in the for wings, it may be said that
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectpaleontology, bookyea
