A Manual of British Ornithology, Vol. 1: Being a Short Description of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, Including the Essential Characters of ... and Orders; The Land Birds (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Excerpt from A Manual of British Ornithology, Vol. 1: Being a Short Description of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, Including the Essential Characters of the Species, Genera, Families, and Orders; The Land Birds

Birds are warm-blooded, oviparous, vertebrate animals. They have a brain, enclosed within a skull, a spinal marrow, protected by vertebrae, nerves issuing from these central parts, and distributed to all the organs. Their heart is double, one side of it receiving the blood from the veins, and sending it out by the pulmonary artery into the lungs, whence, on being subjected to the influence of the air, it re turns by the pulmonary veins to the other side of the heart, which transmits it, by the aorta, to all parts of the body.20 introduction.

Their lungs are small, and incapable of much dilatation, but they communicate by apertures, with cells or membranous sacs situated in the chest, and among the muscles, and be tween them and the skin, and even with the cavities of the bones. Hence their respiration is said to be double. They have an internal skeleton, for the support and motion of the parts are furnished with muscles, or organs subservient to motion; with three double organs of sense, namely, eyes, ears, and nasal cavities with a tongue, which is partly an organ of taste, partly of prehension, and with a general sense of touch or feeling situated in the skin. Organs of assimilation, for the conversion of external substances into their own nature, and of propagation, for the continuance of their species, are also to be enumerated; together with other parts, which require to be somewhat particularly ex plained. For this purpose, let us take any bird, in which the external parts are easily distinguished, a Shrike, for example.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from A Manual of British Ornithology, Vol. 1: Being a Short Description of the Birds of Great Britain and Ireland, Including the Essential Characters of the Species, Genera, Families, and Orders; The Land Birds

No branch of Natural History has been more cultivated than Ornithology. The great beauty and liveliness of Birds, the diversity exhibited in their actions and mode of life, their wonderful migrations, the variety of modulated sounds which they emit, the facility with which many of them may be domesticated, the degree in which they are subservient to our wants, and various other considerations, render them objects of attraction to persons of every age and condition in society. At no former period has this study been more zealously and successfully prosecuted than at the present day. A mere list of the names of individuals who have written on the Birds of Great Britain would occupy considerable space; and when there are among them so many who have in various degrees contributed to the advancement of knowledge, it might seem unfair or presumptuous to point out those whose merits are most conspicuous.

But, as the most valuable works are too expensive to be available to students of every class, it has seemed to me that, to promote this favourite study, nothing is more wanted than a compendium of British Ornithology, a work sufficiently extended to contain descriptions full enough to enable the student to determine every species, and of so small a size as to be conveniently portable.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.