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BIREJIK — BIRKENHEAD

river Mersey, directly opposite Liverpool. The boundaries were extended in 1877, and the population nearly doubled between 1871 and 1881, when there were 84,006 inhabitants; in 1901 the population was 111,000. The rateable value increased from £404,5/8 in 1881 to £547 449 in 1899. On incorporation in 1877, the townships’of Tranmere (1071 acres), Oxton (814 acres), and part of Higher Bebington (246 acres) were included in Birkenhead, the total area of which thus became 3850 acres. The extension coincided with the grant to the town of its municipal charter, and the government is now conducted by a mayor, 14 aldermen, and 42 councillors. Birkenhead has 21 churches belonging to the Established Church, and 41 belonging to various nonconforming bodies. A town-hall and sessions court, built at a total cost of £109,000, were opened in 1887. The water-supply of the town is derived from four pumping stations, all but one inside the borough boundary. The pumping power of the engines is 358,000 gallons per hour, and the total yield per week 27,000,000 gallons. The consumption for 1899 was over 700 million gallons, at an average rate of about 17 gallons per head per day. In 1893 a school board of 15 members was created. It had in 1901 four large schools under its control, with accommodation for 3095 children. Mersey Park, in the south end of the borough, was opened in 1885; a track of moorland, measuring 45 acres, in the township of Thurstaston, at a distance of six miles from Birkenhead, was allotted to the borough as an open space in 1883. In 1900 a portion of a piece of land known as Meols Common, comprising upwards of 54 acres of pasture land, lying on the shore of Liverpool Bay, about three miles from the borough, was vested in the corporation. The Birkenhead ferry service is now carried on by five steamers with a total carrying capacity of 7356 persons, while the goods traffic is conveyed by NEORNITHES three large steamboats. In 1897 the corporation further The Odontolcse seem to be an early specialized offshoot of the Colymbo-Pelargomorphous brigade, while the Ratitse represent a acquired the rights over the Bock Ferry and the New number of side branches of early Alectoromorphae. The Ratite Ferry, at the south end of the borough. . The total branched off, probably during the Eocene period from that still number of passengers carried by the ferries in 1899 was indifferent stock which gave rise to the Tinami + Galh + Gnuformes, Si millions. In connexion with the free library, two when the members of this stock were still in possession ol those branch reading-rooms and libraries were opened in 1894. archaic characters which distinguish Ratite from Carinate. _ it follows that new groups of Ratito. can no longer be developed since In 1879 lairages to deal with the imported cattle trade there are no Carinate living which still retain so many low char- were opened by the dock board at Woodside and on the acters, e.g., configuration of the palate, precoracoid, pelvis intes- south side of Wallasey Dock, with accommodation for tinal convolutions, copulatory organ, &c. Loss of the keel is coordinated with the power of using the forehnibs for locomotion ; 3164 oxen and 10,000 sheep. During the year ending although a ‘ ‘ Ratite ” character, it is not sufficient to turn a Notornis, 31st December 1899, 152,661 oxen and 275,424 sheep Cnemiornis, or String ops, not even a Phororhacos into a member ot passed through these lairages, quite apart from the cattle the Ratite. , . ,. . landed at the North Wallesey Lairage, just outside the e ,, Another branch of the Alectoromorphse, m particular ot the borough boundary. Large new abattoirs were opened in Galliformes, when these were still scarcely separated from the Gruiformes, especially rail-like birds, leads through Opisthoconn 1887. The hospital accommodation of the borough has to the Cuculifornios. These are, again in an ascending direction, been increased by the opening in 1883 of an enlarged connected with the Coraciiformes, out of which have arisen the children’s hospital, and in 1895 of a specially commodious Passeriformes, and these have blossomed into the Oscines, which, infectious diseases hospital at Ilaybrick. The supply of as the apotheosis of bird life, have conquered the wholeHinhabitable electric light is undertaken by the municipal authorities, world. ( - *'• G-) and the generating works were opened in 1896. The Birejik, or Bir(Assyrian Til Barsip^classical Apamea- tramway system has been reorganized, in order to be Zeugma), altitude 1170 feet, built on a limestone cliff 400 worked by electric traction under the control of the feet high, on the left bank of the Euphrates, in the corporation. In 1878 the old Monks Ferry station Aleppo” vilfiyet. It is situated at one of the most im- on the Great Western system was superseded by the portant crossings of the Euphrates, where there, was, in opening of the Woodside passenger station, and a few ancient times, a bridge of boats, and where there is now a years later the Birkenhead town station was also opened. ferry on the caravan route from Aleppo to Diarbekr and In 1886 the Mersey tunnel, connecting Birkenhead with Mosul. In the massacres of 1895 most of the Armenians Liverpool, was opened by the Prince of Wales. _ This were killed or forced to embrace IsUm. Population before system extends from Bock Ferry and Park stations on 1895, 9500 (Moslems, 8000 ; Christians, 1500). the Cheshire side to the low level at central station in Birkenhead, an English seaport, market town, Liverpool, and has connexions on the Cheshire side with township, rural deanery, and municipal and parliamentary the Great Western, London and North-Western, Wirral, borough in the hundred of Wirral and county and and other local systems. In 1896 the Wrexham, Mold diocese of Chester, situated on the western bank of the and Connah’s Quay railway was opened, thus bringing the

14. Order Passeriformes.—Nidicolous. /Egithognatlious, without basi])terygoid processes. Spina externa stemi large, spina interna absent. Quinto - cubital, toes noimal. Apparently since the upper Eocene. . Sub-order 1. Passeres Anisomyodje. — Syrinx muscles entirely lateral or attached to the dorsal or ventral corners of the bronchial semi-rings. (1) Subclamatorcs. Deep plantar tendons connected by a vinculum. EuryIcemidce, broad-bills, Indian and Indo-Malayan. (2) Clamatores. Deep flexor tendons not connected. Pittidce, pabeotropical. Xenicidce, New Zealand. Tyrannidce, Formicariidce, Pteroptochidce, American. Sub-order 2. Passeres Diacromyodje.—Syrinx muscles of either side attached to the dorsal and ventral corners of the rings. Hallux strong, with a large claw. (1) Suboscines with Menura, lyre-bird, and Atrichia, scrabbird, in Australia. (2) Oscines, the true singing-birds, with more than 4500 recent species, are mostly divided into some thirty “families,” few of which can be defined. The fourteen orders of the Carinate are further congregated into four “Legions” :— I. COLYMBOMORPHAS = Ichthyornithes + Colymbiformea + Sphenisciformes + Procellariformes. II. PELARGOMORPHiE = Ciconiiformes + Anseriformea + Falconiformes. „ III. ALECTOROMORPHiE = Tinamiformea + Galhfonnes + Gruiformea + Charadriifonnea. IY. CORACIOMORPHiE = Cuculiformes + Coraciiformea + Passeriformes. These four legions are again combined into two “Brigades,” the first of which comprises the first and second legions, while the second brigade contains the third ami. fourth legions. Thus the whole classification becomes a rounded-off phylogenetic system, which, at least in its broad outlines, seems to approach the natural system, the ideal goal of the scientific ornithologist. I he main branches of the resultant “tree” may be rendered as follows:— CORACIOMORPHA3 + ODONTOLCA5.. .COLYMBO- + PELARGO- ALECTOROMORPHiE... P.ATIT.E MORPH.® MORPH®