File:British birds (1921) (14775195153).jpg

Identifier: britishbirds00huds (find matches)
Title: British birds
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Hudson, W. H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers), 1858-1925
Subjects: Birds -- Great Britain
Publisher: London, New York (etc.) Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
he most important muscle of flight. The sternumoften offers useful characters to the systematist. The sm-face of thebone is sometimes in various degrees fenestrate, or more or lessdeeply incised, the one condition being an exaggeration of the other,and both the conditions being due to defective ossification. Thesternum is attached to the vertebral column by the ribs, which arewell developed in all birds, but vary very much in number. Ahighly characteristic feature of the ribs of birds is a small bony pro-jection of the hinder margin of a certain number of them, calledthe uncinate processes. These are present in all birds, with the THE ANATOMY OF A BIRD 19 Biugle and remarkable exception of the South American Screamers(Chauna, Palamedea), a group of birds occupying a rather isolatedposition, and showing resemblances to a great many different groups. Pelvis. The hind limbs are attached to the vertebral column by meansof a considerable bony structure known as the pelvic girdle (fig. 13).
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 13 Pelvis and Hind Limb op Diver. c, d, ilium ; 63, ischium ; 64, pubis ; 65, femur ; 66, tibia : 67, fibula;68, tarsometatarsus; i.-iv. digits with phalanges numbered. This mass of bone is in reality composed of three pairs of elements,though they are in the adult strongly compacted together. The mainbone, which is firmly attached to the vertebral column, is the ihum ;with this is almost completely fused the ischium ; the very slenderpubis is to a large extent free from these bones. The pelvis is in its 20 BRITISH BIRDS form one of the most characteristic of the bones of the birdsskeleton. In other animals the three bones are present, but theyare directed away from each other ; in the bird, as already described,the pubis is directed backwards, parallel to the ischium ; in corre-spondence, perhaps, with its position it has become a feeble bone, andhas but few muscles attached to it. The interest of the matter,however, is mainly in the fact that among the extinct Dinosaurs, arace

Note About Images