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The strains produced in bones by muscular contraction produce hypertrophy of the part of the bone to which the muscles are attached and thus we can understand the origin of the carina of the sternum in flying birds, and its absence in flightless forms. In bats and in pterodactyls also the sternum is produced into a carina along the median line.
In less than a hundred years the settlers had introduced sheep and cattle, and looked upon the abounding pigs as a scourge. In 1862, pig-hunters were employed to destroy them three hunters would kill 20,000 pigs in a year. Dogs, cats and the European rats came in early with the settlers, and destroyed the flightless birds, driving them for shelter to the mountains.
Great Auks were once numbered literally by millions in the North Atlantic. They were flightless and exceedingly fat. They were easily killed with clubs on the breeding rookeries, and provided an acceptable meat supply for fishermen and other toilers of the sea; also their feathers were sought. They were very common off Labrador and Newfoundland.
The majority resembled lizards and crocodiles in their general form, and many of them were, like crocodiles, protected by an armour of heavy bony plates. But, in others, the hind-limbs elongate and the fore-limbs shorten, until their relative proportions approach those which are observed in the short-winged, flightless, ostrich tribe among birds.
The majority resembled lizards and crocodiles in their general form, and many of them were, like crocodiles, protected by an armour of heavy bony plates. But, in others, the hind limbs elongate and the fore limbs shorten, until their relative proportions approach those which are observed in the short-winged, flightless, ostrich tribe among birds.
They are very strange wingless birds, about the size of a large Dorking fowl. The Kiwis are still in existence, but the Moas and some of the other flightless birds have died out since the arrival of the Maori man, who killed and ate them.
Amongst the flightless birds of New Zealand is a duck, as helpless as the heaviest farmyard product, and yet a wild bird, and then there are the penguins, which swim with their wings, but never fly, and belong entirely to the southern hemisphere. Many species are found on the shores of New Zealand. There were fish in the rivers when settlers arrived there, but none very remarkable.
The beautiful dark plumage and thick and short beak, which is bright red, as are the legs, are well known from the two specimens preserved in the Natural History Museum. The Notornis is a heavy, flightless "rail."
The time-honoured brutality of swan-upping is now mitigated by law, its cruelty being obvious. It would be far better to leave them the use of their wings, which would enable them to seek food at a distance in winter, and to escape the ice, which sometimes breaks their legs. Several of these flightless swans were starved to death in 1902.
The majority resembled lizards and crocodiles in their general form, and many of them were, like crocodiles, protected by an armour of heavy bony plates. But, in others, the hind limbs elongate and the fore limbs shorten, until their relative proportions approach those which are observed in the short-winged, flightless, ostrich tribe among birds.
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