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It is even thought that some of these wonderful birds of the limitless ocean sleep on the wing, though how such an hypothesis could be proved it would be difficult to say. Even in this day of scientific research and astuteness, it must not be supposed that everything about the mechanics of avicular flight is understood.
The systematists have placed them in this niche of the avicular scheme, not only because they are able to perch like other passeres on twigs and small branches, but also because they have the foot of the true perching bird, with three toes in front and one, well developed, in the rear.
The wings are highly specialized members of the avicular organism, and hence differ in many important respects from the fore or pectoral limbs of the mammals. Beginning at the point nearest the body, let us examine one of these wonderful instruments.
He has a decided advantage, however, over all his warbler kin, for he is not only gifted with the creeping talent, but is also just as dexterous as they in perching on a horizontal twig. The little bird known as the brown creeper belongs to a different avicular family entirely, but in one respect he is like the black-and-white warbler that is, he scales the trunks and branches of the trees.
Just as the movements of the human lips have much to do with the modifications of the human voice, so the opening and closing of the bird's mandibles exercise a modifying influence upon avicular tones. If it were not so, the feathered minstrel would not keep his mandibles in such constant motion during his lyrical recitals.
These notes stir several queries in one's mind. Is there such a thing as social ostracism in the bird world? Might these hilltop eremites have committed some crime or some breach of decorum that effected their banishment from respectable avicular society? Or were they simply of a sullen or retiring disposition, choosing seclusion rather than the company of their kind?
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