Hans Friedrich Gadow

“ Under such conditions we might expect to find an extremely plentiful animal population, one as rich as that which inhabits the same latitudes in Central America, not many degrees farther to the west; but no instance perhaps can be cited which shows more strikingly the difference between a continental and an insular fauna, since, making every allowance for the ravages of cultivation by civilized man, the contrary is the case, and possibly no area of land so highly favoured by nature is so poorly furnished with the higher forms of animal life. ”

“ Leaving, however, this matter as in some degree hypothetical, we have as genera, families, or perhaps even larger groups, a great many very remarkable forms which are characteristic of, or peculiar to, the Neotropical region in part, if not as a whole. Of families we find twenty-three, or maybe more, absolutely restricted thereto, besides at least eight which, being peculiar to the New World, extend their range into the Nearctic region, but are there so feebly developed that their origin may be safely ascribed to the southern portion of America. ”

“ But the Australian region is also remarkable for its ornithic singularity. All the existing Ratitae (with the exception of the ostriches of Africa and South America, belonging to the genera Struthio and Rhea, and comprising at most but five species) are found in Austrogaea and nowhere else. Of the Passeres the honey-suckers (Meliphagidae) are most characteristic, and, abounding in genera and species, extend to almost every part of the region, yet only one species of Ptilotis oversteps its limits, crossing the sea from Lombok to Bali. Other peculiar families are much more confined. ”

“ The humerus with its crests, ridges and processes, presents so many modifications characteristic of the various groups of birds, that its configuration alone is not only of considerable taxonomic value but that almost any genus, excepting, of course, those of Passeres, can be “spotted” by a close examination and comparison of this bone. When the wing is folded the long glenoid surface of the head of the humerus is bordered above by the tuberculum externum or superius, in the middle and below by the tuberculum medium or inferius for the insertion of the coraco-brachialis posterior muscle. ”

“ The keel, or carina sterni, is formed as a direct cartilaginous outgrowth of the body of the sternum, ossifying from a special centre. This keel is much reduced in the New Zealand parrot, Stringops, less in various flightless rails, in the dodo and solitaire. It is absent in the Ratitae, which from this feature have received their name, but considerable traces of a cartilaginous keel occur in the embryo of the ostrich, showing undeniably that the absence of a keel in the recent bird is not a primitive, fundamental feature. ”

“ There are many perching birds, e.g. all the Passeres, which do not possess this muscle at all, whilst many of those which have it fully developed, e.g. Anseres, can hardly be said to “perch.”
Garrod went so far as to divide all the birds into Homalogonatae and Anomalogonatae, according to the presence or absence of the ambiens muscle. This resulted in a failure. To appreciate this, it is sufficient to enumerate the birds without the critical muscle: Passeriformes and Coraciiformes, without exception; Ardeae and Podiceps; lastly various genera of storks, pigeons, parrots, petrels and auks. ”

“ There is no other protection, but slight, imperfectly movable folds of skin arise from the outer rim. The largest ear-opening is met with in the owls, with correspondingly larger folds of skin, the function of which is less that of protection than, probably, the catching of sound. In many owls the right and left ears are asymmetrical, and this asymmetry affects the whole of the temporal region, all the bones which surround the outer and middle ear, notably the squamosal and the quadrate, so that the skull becomes lopsided, one ear being turned obliquely down, the other upwards. ”

“ That is to say, the distribution of forms in time is a subject so much connected with the distribution of forms in space, that the one can hardly be separated from the other. Granting this is a general truth, it must yet be acknowledged as a special fact, that in fossil birds we have as yet but scanty means of arriving at any precise results which will justify bold generalization in the matter of avine distribution. Remains of extinct birds are, compared with those of other classes of vertebrates, exceedingly scarce, and these have been found in very few, widely separated countries. ”

“ The oviduct is always a Müllerian duct separate from the ovary and opening from the body cavity. The adult kidney is a metanephros with separate ureter; the mesonephros and mesonephric duct become in the adult male the efferent duct of the testis. The intestine and the reproductive and urinary ducts open into a common cloaca. There is usually an exoskeleton in the form of scales; in the birds the scales take the form of feathers. There are two aortic arches in reptiles, in birds only one-the right. The heart is usually trilocular, becoming quadrilocular in crocodiles and birds. ”

“ Thus it has come to pass that the muscles of the hind limbs are, like their framework, more easily compared with those of reptiles and mammals than are the wings, whilst within the class of birds they show an enormous amount of variation in direct correlation with their manifold requirements. The only really aberrant modifications of the wing-muscles are found in the Ratitae, where they are, however, all easily explained by reduction, and in the penguins, where the wings are greatly specialized into blades for rowing with screw-like motions. ”

“ Between fifty and sixty so-called families of land birds alone are found within its limits, and of them at least nine are peculiar; the typical genera of which are Buphaga, Euryceros, Philepitta, Musophaga, Irrisor, Leptosoma, Colius, Serpentarius, Struthio, Aepyornis. It is singular that only the first three of them belong to the order Passeriformes, a proportion which is not maintained in any other tropical region. The number of peculiar genera, besides those just mentioned, is too great for them to be named here ”

“ L. K. Schmarda [3] divided the land into twenty-one realms, characterizing these mainly by their birds. P. L. Sclater [4] was the first to divide the world into a few great “regions,” the Palaearctic, Ethiopian, Indian and Australian forming one group, the “Old World” (Palaeogaea) ; and the Nearctic and Neotropical forming a second, the New World (Neogaea) . ”

“ Originally terrestrial groups have taken to an entirely aquatic life, and vice versâ; others, originally endowed with the power of flight, have become, or are transforming themselves into, absolutely cursorial forms; some members of one group live entirely on seeds, while others have become fierce fishers, and so forth. Only by the most careful inquiry into their history can their relationship or pedigree be unravelled. A statement may now be given of Gadow’s classification of birds, in which the extinct forms have been intercalated so far as possible. ”

“ Sea-snakes shed their skin frequently; but it peels off in pieces as in lizards, and not as in the freshwater snakes, in which the integuments come off entire. Several species are remarkable for the extremely slender and prolonged anterior part of the body, and very small head. The eye is small, with round pupil, which is so much contracted by the light when the snake is taken out of the water that the animal becomes blinded and is unable to hit any object it attempts to strike. ”

“ The effects of a bite by a poisonous snake upon a small mammal or bird are almost instantaneous, preventing its escape; and the snake swallows its victim at its leisure, sometimes hours after it has been killed. The prey is always swallowed entire, and, as its girth generally much exceeds that of the snake, the progress of deglutition is very laborious and slow. ”

“ The Malagasy province comprises, besides Madagascar, the Mascarene, Comoro and Seyehelle islands. It may be safely deemed the most peculiar area of the earth’s surface, while from the richness and multifariousness of its animal, and especially of its ornithic population, New Zealand cannot be compared with it. In A. Grandidier’s magnificent Histoire physique, naturelle et politique de Madagascar, vol. xii. (Paris, 1875-1884) , are enumerated 238 species as belonging to the island, of which 129 are peculiar to it, and among those are no fewer than 35 peculiar genera. ”

“ Three of the species have the body ornamented with black rings, but the fourth and most common (B. coeruleus) , the "krait" of Bengal, possesses a dull and more uniform coloration. The fangs of the bungarums are shorter than those of the cobras, and cannot penetrate so deeply into the wound. Their bite is therefore less dangerous and the effect on the general system slower, so that there is more prospect of recovery by treatment. Nevertheless, the krait is probably the most destructive snake to human life in India, since it is very common and often creeps into the houses. ”

“ The lower Eocene has furnished a greater number of bird bones. Some of the largest are those of Gastornis, with three species from France, Belgium and England. Much difference of opinion obtains as to the affinities of these birds, which were far larger than an ostrich; they were undoubtedly incapable of flight and there are indications of teeth in the upper jaw. Provisionally this genus has been grouped with the Ratitae, which at any rate are a heterogenous assembly. ”

“ The majority lead an exclusively arboreal life; only a few descend to the ground in search of their food. They prey upon every kind of arboreal animal—birds, tree-frogs, tree-lizards, &c. All seem to be diurnal, and the larger kinds attain to a length of about 4 ft. The most beautiful of all snakes are perhaps certain varieties of Chrysopelea ornata, a species extremely common in the Indian Archipelago and many parts of the continent of tropical Asia. ”