our arms correspond to the fore legs of beasts, though we never use them
for moving about, except when we go on our hands and knees, or climb
trees, or swim in the water. And as for birds--why, their fore limbs
are turned into wings, to fly with, so that they walk or hop on their
hind limbs only, just as we do. Animals that go on all fours are called
_quadrupeds_. Animals that go on their two hind limbs only, like Bird
People and House People, are called _bipeds_. A Sparrow's wings are just
as much like a mouse's fore legs, as a Sparrow's feathers are like a
mouse's fur."

"How funny!" said Dodo. "But how are a bird's wings like fore legs, when
they haven't got any paws or toes--or fingers--or claws--only just long
feathers?"

"They have fingers, and some birds' wings have claws; only you cannot
see them, because they are all wrapped up in the skin and covered over
with the feathers. Some day--not to-day, because you have had a long
lesson already--I will show you a bird's wing with only its bones. Then
you will see that it has finger-bones at the end, then hand-bones next,
then bones that run from the wrist to the elbow, and then one bone that
runs from the elbow to the shoulder--almost the same bones that people
have in their fingers, hands, wrists, and arms. So you see wings are the
same to a bird that fore legs are to a mouse or arms are to us.

"I could go through all the inside parts of birds, and show you
something like the same parts in people,--stomach and bowels, to take
care of the food they eat and turn it into blood to nourish them; lungs
to breathe with, and keep the blood pure; heart to beat and thus pump
the warm blood into all parts of the body; brain and nerves, which are
what birds think and feel with, just as we do with ours; and all their