BIRD

warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, unique in having feathers and forelimbs modified into wings. The dispersal of birds is almost universal due to their flight capacity. Generally, the number of species in any area of the world depends proportionately on the space and diversity of habitats. Mankind has used birds and their eggs for food since the earliest times, and with the beginnings of agricultural society, domestication of some species of wild birds began. The red jungle fowl, the mallard duck, and the greylag goose were the ancestors of the domestic chicken, the duck, and the barnyard goose. Modern culture has changed the need for wild game from food source to sport. Bird feathers are used for decoration as well as insulation and many birds are kept as pets. Despite all their uses, birds can be serious pests due to depredations of grains and fruit. warm-blooded vertebrate of the class Aves, unique in having feathers, the one major characteristic that distinguishes them from all other animals. Birds have a four-chambered heart (shared with all mammals), forelimbs modified into wings (shared with bats), a calcareous-shelled egg, and keen vision, the major sense they rely on for information about the environment. Their sense of smell is not highly developed, and auditory range is limited. Most birds are diurnal in habit. There are approximately 8,700 living species, and more than 1,000 extinct species have been identified from fossil remains. Additional reading General works General illustrated works, written in a popular style, include Roger Tory Peterson et al., The Birds, rev. ed. (1980); Oliver L. Austin, Jr., and Arthur Singer, Birds of the World, ed. by Herbert S. Zim (1961, reissued 1983); James Fisher and Roger Tory Peterson, World of Birds, new and rev. ed. (1988); and E. Thomas Gilliard, Living Birds of the World (1958). Bruce Campbell and Elizabeth Lack (eds.), A Dictionary of Birds (1985), provides definitions and authoritative accounts of a wide variety of topics related to birds. Other reference works, all well-illustrated and written for a general audience, include Christopher M. Perrins and Alex L.A. Middleton (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Birds (1985); Christopher M. Perrins (ed.), The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Birds (1990); and Michael Brooke and Tim Birkhead (eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Ornithology (1991). Three college-level texts covering all aspects are Josselyn Van Tyne and Andrew J. Berger, Fundamentals of Ornithology, 2nd ed. (1976), especially noteworthy for its accounts of avian families; Joel Carl Welty and Luis Baptista, The Life of Birds, 4th ed. (1988); and Frank B. Gill, Ornithology (1990).Among the many books treating specific regions, the following may be recommended. For the Eurasian region, see Charles Vaurie, The Birds of the Palearctic Fauna: A Systematic Reference, 2 vol. (195965); Stanley Cramp (ed.), Handbook of the Birds of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Palearctic, 7 vol. (197793); Colin Harrison and Crispin Fisher, An Atlas of the Birds of the Western Palearctic (1982); H.F. Witherby et al., The Handbook of British Birds, 5 vol. (193841, reissued 1952); David A. Bannerman, The Birds of the British Isles, 12 vol. (195363); G.P. Dementev and N.A. Gladkov (eds.), Birds of the Soviet Union, 6 vol. (196670; originally published in Russian, 195154); V.E. Flint et al., A Field Guide to Birds of the USSR: Including Eastern Europe and Central Asia (1984; originally published in Russian, 1968); Mark A. Brazil and Masayuki Yabuuchi, The Birds of Japan (1991); and Rodolphe Meyer De Schauensee et al., The Birds of China (1984). For tropical Asia, see Slim Ali and S. Dillon Ripley, Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan: Together with Those of Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Ceylon, 10 vol. (196874)later volumes include Bangladesh in the titleand a compact ed. in 1 vol. (1983); Ben F. King and Edward C. Dickinson, A Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia (1975, reprinted as The Collins Field Guide to the Birds of South-East Asia, 1988); and B.E. Smythies, The Birds of Burma, 3rd rev. ed. (1986), and The Birds of Borneo, 3rd ed. rev. by the Earl of Cranbrook (1981). For Australasia and Antarctica, see S. Marchant and P.J. Higgins (eds.), Handbook of Australian, New Zealand & Antarctic Birds (1990 ); Richard Schodde and Sonia C. Tidemann (eds.), Reader's Digest Complete Book of Australian Birds, 2nd ed. rev. (1988); D.L. Serventy and H.M. Whittell, Birds of Western Australia, 5th ed. (1976); W.R.B. Oliver, New Zealand Birds, 2nd ed. rev. and enlarged (1955, reprinted 1974); Austin L. Rand and E. Thomas Gilliard, Handbook of New Guinea Birds (1968); J.E. DuPont, Philippine Birds (1971); Ernst Mayr, Birds of the Southwest Pacific (1945, reissued 1978); and George Watson, J. Phillip Angle, and Peter C. Harper, Birds of the Antarctic and Sub-Antarctic (1975).For Africa, see David A. Bannerman, The Birds of Tropical West Africa, 8 vol. (193051), and The Birds of West and Equatorial Africa, 2 vol. (1953), based on the longer work; C.W. Mackworth-Praed and C.H.B. Grant, Birds of Eastern and North Eastern Africa, 2nd ed., 2 vol. (195760, reprinted 1980), Birds of the Southern Third of Africa, 2 vol. (196263, reprinted 1981), and Birds of West Central and Western Africa, 2 vol. (197073, reprinted 1980); and Leslie H. Brown et al., The Birds of Africa (1982 ).For North America, see Arthur Cleveland Bent, The Life Histories of North American Birds, 18 vol. in 21 (191968, reprinted 196168); Ralph S. Palmer (ed.), Handbook of North American Birds, 5 vol. (196288), a compendium of information on North American loons, grebes, petrels, pelecaniforms, ciconiiforms, and flamingos (vol. 1), waterfowl (vol. 23), and diurnal raptors (vol. 45); John K. Terres, The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds (1980, reissued 1991), with an extensive bibliography; Ira N. Gabrielson and Frederick C. Lincoln, The Birds of Alaska (1959); and W. Earl Godfrey, The Birds of Canada, rev. ed. (1986).For the birds of the Caribbean region and Central and South America, see James Bond, Birds of the West Indies, 5th ed. (1985); Alexander Wetmore and Bradshaw H. Swales, The Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic (1931); Rodolphe Meyer De Schauensee, A Guide to the Birds of South America (1970, reprinted with additions, 1982); Robert Cushman Murphy, Oceanic Birds of South America, 2 vol. (1936); Alexander F. Skutch, Life Histories of Central American Birds, 3 vol. (195469), Life Histories of Central American Highland Birds (1967), and Studies of Tropical American Birds (1972); and Robert S. Ridgely, Guy Tudor, and William L. Brown, The Birds of South America (1989 ). For seabirds, W.B. Alexander, Birds of the Ocean, new and rev. ed. (1954, reissued 1963), is a standard identification handbook; it is supplemented by James Fisher and R.M. Lockley, Sea-birds (1954), an introduction to the natural history of the seabirds of the North Atlantic; Peter Harrison, Seabirds: An Identification Guide (1983); and Lars Lfgren, Ocean Birds (1984). Natural history Aspects of bird locomotion and behaviour are treated in Georg Rppell, Bird Flight (1977; originally published in German, 1975); Raymond J. O'Connor, The Growth and Development of Birds (1984); Robert Burton, Bird Behavior (1985); Reginald E. Moreau, The Palaearctic-African Bird Migration Systems (1972); Frederick C. Lincoln, Migration of Birds, rev. ed. by Steven R. Peterson (1979); Chris Mead, Bird Migration (1983); R. Robin Baker, Bird Navigation: The Solution of a Mystery? (1984); Donald E. Kroodsma, Edward H. Miller, and Henri Ouellet (eds.), Acoustic Communication in Birds (1982 ); Nicholas E. Collias and Elsie C. Collias, Nest Building and Bird Behavior (1984); and Alexander F. Skutch, Parent Birds and Their Young (1976). Form and function Works on the anatomy and physiology of birds include A.J. Marshall (ed.), Biology and Comparative Physiology of Birds, 2 vol. (196061); Donald S. Farner, James R. King, and K.C. Parkes (eds.), Avian Biology, 8 vol. (197185); A.S. King and J. McLelland, Form and Function in Birds, 4 vol. (197989); P.D. Sturkie (ed.), Avian Physiology, 4th ed. (1986); Alfred M. Lucas and Peter R. Stettenheim, Avian Anatomy: Integument, 2 vol. (1972); David Lack, Ecological Adaptations for Breeding in Birds (1968); R.K. Murton and N.J. Westwood, Avian Breeding Cycles (1977); and Ian Newton (ed.), Lifetime Reproduction in Birds (1989). Evolution and paleontology The fossil record is analyzed by P. Brodkorb, Catalogue of Fossil Birds, pt. 15, Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences, 7(4):179293 (1963), 8(3):195335 (1964), 11(3):99220 (1967), 15(4):163266 (1971), 23(3):139228 (1978), a world list of fossil birds; Alexander Wetmore, A Check-List of the Fossil and Prehistoric Birds of North America and the West Indies (1956), an account of North American fossil birds not included in the parts of Brodkorb's catalogue published up to the early 1970s; W.E. Swinton, Fossil Birds, 3rd ed. (1975); Alan Feduccia, The Age of Birds (1980); Gavin De Beer, Archaeopteryx lithographica (1954, reissued 1967), an account of this important fossil; M.K. Hecht et al. (eds.), The Beginnings of Birds (1985), proceedings of an international Archaeopteryx conference; Othniel Charles Marsh, Odontornithes (1880), figures and descriptions of Hesperornis and Ichthyornis; and K.C. Parkes, Speculations on the Origin of Feathers, Living Bird, 5:7786 (1966), arguments favouring evolution of feathers for flight rather than thermoregulation. Classification Differing arrangements of the orders and families of birds include Ernst Mayr and Dean Amadon, A Classification of Recent Birds, American Museum Novitates, no. 1496 (1951); Alexander Wetmore, A Classification for the Birds of the World (1960); James L. Peters et al., Check-list of Birds of the World, 16 vol. in 17 (193187), a standard technical reference on classification and distribution of all species, with a 2nd ed. under way edited by Ernst Mayr and G. William Cottrell (1979 ); Oliver L. Austin, Jr., and Arthur Singer, Families of Birds (1971), a general, popular work; Ad Cameron, Bird Families of the World, ed. by C.J.O. Harrison (1978); and two works with a scheme derived from DNA research: Charles G. Sibley and Jon E. Ahlquist, Phylogeny and Classification of Birds: A Study in Molecular Evolution (1990); and Charles G. Sibley and Burt L. Monroe, Jr., Distribution and Taxonomy of Birds of the World (1990). Robert W. Storer Austin L. Rand The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica Classification Distinguishing taxonomic features In classifying birds, most systematists rely primarily on structural characters. Plumage characters include the number of remiges and rectrices; the presence or absence of down on the feather tracts, on apteria, and on the oil gland; and the presence or absence of an aftershaft. Characteristics of the bill and feet are useful, as is the arrangement of bones in the palate and around the nostrils. The presence or absence of certain thigh muscles and the arrangement of the carotid arteries, the syrinx, and the deep flexor tendons of the toes are employed, as is the condition of the young when hatched. Advances in the study of protein structure and of chromosomes have provided new means of determining taxonomic relationships. Annotated classification This classification is based primarily on that of the American ornithologist Alexander Wetmore but includes the ideas of a number of other authorities. It is unlikely that most avian systematists would agree on all aspects of one arrangement, but the one presented below will satisfy many. The dagger () indicates extinct groups, known only from fossils.