Excerpt from Cassell's Natural History: The Feathered Tribes The inferior limbs consist of the following parts -the thigh-bone, or 'mm' (c), which is short, lies close to the body, enveloped in muscles, covered with the skin, and concealed beneath the feathers. The next part is the tibia (d), and to this succeeds the tarsus (e), consisting of a single elongated bone, covered only with scaly skin, having the toes articulated to its extremity. In most birds the toes are three before and one behind, but here great variety prevails. The number. Of bones which compose each respective toe appears, indeed, to be regulated by a uniform law. 'the innermost toe, which may be compared to a thumb, consists invariably of two bones; that which is next to it in the order of sequence has always three; that which follows has four; and the outermost toe has five bones the claws being in every case affixed to the last joints, which have, therefore, been termed the ungual bones. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."