Cassell's book of birds; vol. 1

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

The names appropriated to the different parts of the hinder-limb have been already sufficiently indicated when describing the composition of the skeleton.

There are many birds which have stripes of variously coloured feathers situated above, before, and behind the eye; while others sometimes occur at the base of the lower mandible. To all these distinct names have been appropriated. A superciliary stripe is situated above the eye, occupying a position analogous to that of the human eyebrow. An ordinary eye-stripe is either anterior, posterior, or entire. It is called anterior when it only occupies the space between the eye and the bill; posterior when it commences behind the eye, and advances towards or unites with the ear-feathers; and entire when it is both posterior and anterior. A maxillary stripe commences at the base of the under mandible, and descends on the sides of the neck.

Fig. 14.—CHICKEN IN THE EGG, NEARLY ARRIVED AT MATURITY,

Showing the little Hammer or "Bill-scale" on the end of its beak, wherewith it is enabled to break through the egg-shell.

Such is the by no means very long list of names of parts used by the ornithologist in his description, and which in the course of the present volume will necessarily be of very frequent occurrence.

The oil with which birds preen their feathers, and the glands that supply it, constitute a remarkable provision peculiar to the feathered creation. Embedded among the feathers at the root of the tail, there is on each side a small nipple, yielding upon pressure a butter-like substance, which the bird extracts by squeezing the orifice with its bill. By means of the oil, or rather ointment, thus procured, it dresses its feathers, either for the purpose of increasing their brilliancy, or, as in the case of the swimming birds, to make them impenetrable to wet.

The pairing of birds is a feature in their history which draws a broad line of distinction between the feathered tribes and the generality of quadrupeds. Among mammiferous quadrupeds the young derive their nutriment during the earlier period of their existence entirely from the maternal breast, the male parent contributing nothing towards its support; but in the winged races the callow brood derive their supply of food from the industry of both parents, whose united exertions are not more than is requisite to procure the needful supply. In this circumstance we may see a reason for the faithful love of the feathered mate as contrasted with the vagrant disposition of the quadruped. The parental fondness of birds towards their young has escaped no observer; no historian of nature is silent upon this subject. "How well they caress them," says Derham, "with their affectionate notes, lull and quiet them with their voice, put food into their mouths, cherish and keep them warm, teach them to peck and eat, and gather food for themselves, and, in a word, perform the part of so many nurses deputed by the Sovereign Lord and preserver of the world to help such young and shiftless creatures."

It would lead us far beyond the limits of our space were we to do more than indicate the close relationship that exists between the exalted temperature and warm clothing of the feathered creation and the wonderful instinct which urges them to build nests for the reception of their eggs, or the still more remarkable blind perseverance with which they devote themselves to the task of incubation. "There is nothing," says Paley, "either in the aspect or in the internal composition of an egg which could lead even the most daring imagination to conjecture that it was hereafter to turn out from its shell a perfect living bird. From the contents of an egg would any one expect the production of a feathered goldfinch? To suppose the female bird to act in this process from a sagacity and reason of her own is to suppose her to arrive at conclusions there are no premises to justify." And yet He who made the egg not only ordained that such should be the result of the simple process of incubation; but, as though to confound scepticism, by giving, as it were, the last touch to His inscrutable work, provided the young bird with the means of escaping from incarceration, by attaching to the end of its beak a little hammer, called the "bill-scale," the only use of which is to crack the egg-shell, and allow the little prisoner to come forth. (See Fig. 14.)

With these few prefatory remarks, we leave our author in the reader's hands, at the same time promising that he will find in the succeeding pages a rich store of valuable information.