Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/256

242 condition of the remiges or quills, which never have coherent barbs, and are therefore unfitted to the purpose of flight. In the ostrich and rhea the bones, though comparatively small, are distinct and complete, and the feathers large and definitely arranged. The emu, cassowary, and apteryx show various degrees of degeneration, which apparently culminated in the dinornis, no trace of a wing-bone of which bird has ever been found. The question which naturally presents itself with regard to these birds is, whether they represent a stage through which all have passed before acquiring perfect wings, or whether they are descendants of birds which had once such wings, but which have become degraded by want of use. In the absence of paleontological evidence it is difficult to decide this point. The complete structure of the bony framework of the ostrich's wing, with its two distinct claws, rather points to its direct descent from the reptilian hand, without ever having passed through the stage of a flying organ. The function of locomotion being entirely performed by powerfully developed hind-legs, and the beak, mounted on the long, flexible neck, being sufficient for the offices commonly performed by hands, the fore-limbs appear to have degenerated or disappeared, just as the hind-limbs of the whales disappeared when their locomotory functions were transferred to the tail. This view is strengthened by the great light that has been thrown on the origin of the wings of the flying birds by the fortunate discovery of the Archæopteryx of the Solenhofen beds of Jurassic age, as in this most remarkable animal, half lizard and half bird, the process of modification from hand to perfect flying bird is clearly demonstrated. The three digits, which in the existing forms are more or less pressed together and imperfect, still retain their freedom and complete number of phalanges, and are each armed with terminal claws, while the flight-feathers and remiges of the cubital, metacarpal, and digital series are fully developed and evidently functional. The earlier stages in which the outer digits were still present, and the feathers imperfectly formed or merely altered scales, are not yet in evidence.

Some conception of the process by which a wing may have been formed may also be derived from the study of the growth of feathers on the feet of some domestic varieties of pigeons and poultry.



EODETICAL science—that is, the particular branch of human investigation which is devoted to ascertain what are the exact form and dimensions of the earth—has not been slow to follow the general progress. The advance made in this branch of studies since it was first proved that the earth's form was spheric, and since Galileo 