All other existing birds belong to the second division, and are called (from the keel on the breast-bone) _carinate_ birds.
Now birds and reptiles have such and so many points in common, that Darwinians must regard the former as modified descendants of ancient reptilian forms.

But on Darwinian principles it is impossible that the class of birds so uniform and homogeneous should have had a double reptilian origin.

If one set of birds sprang from one set of reptiles, and another set of birds from another set of reptiles, the two sets could never, by "Natural Selection" only, have grown into such a perfect similarity.

To admit such a phenomenon would be equivalent to abandoning the theory of "Natural Selection" as the sole origin of species.
Now, until recently it has generally been supposed by evolutionists that those ancient flying reptiles, the pterodactyles, or forms allied to them, were the progenitors of the class of birds; and certain parts of their structure especially support this view.

Allusion is here made to the bladebone (scapula), and the bone which passes down from the shoulder-joint to the breast-bone (viz.