406 Mr. N. A. Vicors on the Natural Affinities 
more distant orders, the Wading and the Webfooted Birds. On 
the whole, the term I have chosen appears to me the most com- 
prehensive I could assign, and most expressive of the character 
which strikes me as prevailing in the type of the order. 
There thus appear five great primary divisions or orders of 
birds, which may be arranged in the following succession : 
Pedibus constringentibus . .. ++. ee or Birds of Prey. 
Birds endowed with feet formed for i À 
xps InsEssores, or Perching Birds. 
Basi lostendeenutbus 20, -(RASORES, FL, or Gallinaceous Birds. 
Birds endowed with feet incapable 4 GRALLATORES, Ill., or Wading Birds. 
er [Nararores, Ill., or Webfooted Birds. 
These divisions deviate in no respect from the long established 
orders of Linnæus, with the exception of two of his orders having 
been, as before said, united into one, for which I hope sufficient 
reason will hereafter appear. As they succeed each other in the 
above arrangement, they are in like manner found to coincide 
with the views of our own distinguished naturalists, Messrs. Ray 
and Pennant, who have arranged the whole class under the pri- 
mary divisions of Land and Water Birds; the three first of the 
above orders constituting that great group of birds which seek 
their support on land ; the two latter forming those groups which 
derive their subsistence from the water. 
We may now proceed to trace the chain of affinities by which 
these orders are connected together. On turning our attention 
in the first instance to the Birds of Prey, we may expect to 
find the nearest approach to the Perchers among those ex- 
treme groups of the former order, which recede the furthest 
from its typical character; which possess, in short, to a less 
degree, the habits of rapine peculiar to the raptorial tribes, and 
less of that power and robustness of structure which characterize 
the typical birds of the order. The genus Strix of Linnzus im- 
mediately presents itself as answering this description, where 
the 
