Papuans kill birds of P. by shooting them with arrows, and employ various other means of taking them for the sake of their 'skins. The skins are dried in smoke, and fumigated with sulphur, to preserve them from insects; and in this way the brilliancy of the color is impaired, so that the most gorgeous plumes which are ever seen in Europe are inferior, in this respect, to those of the living bird. The skin, to which great part of the flesh is allowed to remain attached, is always much contracted by this drying process, and a very erroneous notion is therefore often formed of the size of the bird. The common B. of P. is as large as a jay. It is of a cinnamon color, the upper part of the head and neck yellow, the front and throat emerald green, the shoulder-tufts yellow. The whole length of the extremity of these is not less than two feet. Another nearly allied species (Paradisea rubra) has these long feathers of a brilliant carmine color.
BIRDS the second class of vertebrate(' (q.v.) animals, and the first of oviparous veterhrated :111i111211S, including all the oviparous animals which have warm blood. 13. exhibit great similarity in their general structure, and are sharply distinguished from all other classes of animals. To this class belong all animals, except bats (q.v.) alone, which have an internal skeleton, and are capable of true flight. The anterior extremities of B. serve them only as wings or organs of flight, and never in any degree as arms or legs: those few birds in which the wings are too small to raise the body in the air, generally employ them to aid their swift running upon land, as the ostrich, or for swimming under water, as the great auk and the penguins. The body is covered with feathers (q.v.), and this is one of the characters in which nil birds agree, and by which they are distinguished from all other animals. The general form is adapted to motion through the air, and the trunk is compact. and somewhat boat-shaped. The vertebral column possesses little flexibility; indeed, the vertebrae of the back generally become ankylosed or firmly united together by cementing bone. the solidity which is thus acquired being of evident use for the support of the ribs, and these also are pro portionately stronger than is usual in quadrupeds; each of them is provided in the middle with a flattened' bony process, directed obliquely hackwarks to the next rib, so that they support one another, whilst instead of being united to the sternum, or breast-bone, by cartilages, as in quadrupeds, they are continued to it in the form of bone; all these things combining to give strength to that part of the body in which it is particularly needed. both in order to the powerful action of the wings, and the perfect freedom of
respiration during flight. In those birds, however, which do not fly, the vertebrae of the back retain some power of motion. Ths hinder part of the vertebral column exhibits a solidity even greater than the anterior part of it, the lumbar vcrtebrin (q.v.) being con solidated into one piece with the pelvis (q.v.), which furnishes attachment to strong muscles for support of the trunk upon the legs, and for the motion of these organs. The vertebral column, however, terminates in a number of small movable (coecygeal) vertebrae, the flexibility of this part being necessary to the motion of the tail, which is itself sup ported by a short and generally much elevated bone, regarded as consisting of ankylosed vertebrae, called the rump-bone, or, from its peculiar form, the plowshare-bone.
In contrast to the general stiffness of the vertebral column in the trunk, it is remark able for great flexibility in the neck, enabling a bird to make ready use of its bill, or to bring its head into such position as suit the adjustment of the center of gravity in flying, standing, etc.
The number of vertebrae in the neck varies from ten to twenty-three, the smallest number being greater Ilia. is found in any quadruped. The head, also, is so articulated to the neck. by a single cond ?Ile, or pivot. that a bird can turn its head round in a manner impossible to the mannnalia. The skull itself is formed of hones corresponding with those of man and quadrupeds; but they C2111 0111V he distinguished when the bird is very young, soon becoming consolidated together. The jaws are much elongated. so as to form the bill, the organ chiefly eittployed in seizing food, as well as for fighting, nest building, dressing or preening the feathers, and instead of a hand for every purpose which bird-life requires. The upper mandible of the bill is so connected, however, with the bone of the skull, by elastic plates, that it possesses some power of motion, and any shock which it may receive is much deadened before reaching the skull. The bill affords many of the most important distinctive characters of B., differing very much according to the mode of life of different orders and tribes. See BILL.