that connect the Orders and Families of Birds. 413 
knees : while their habits, entirely terrestrial, and for the most 
part confined even to arid situations, keep them apart from 
those birds which affect the neighbourhood of waters. They 
are met, on the other hand, by a group among the Grallatores, 
the family of Gruide, which, though decidedly Waders, and living 
in moist places, have their food more vegetable, and their habits 
more terrestrial, than the other families of the same order*. 
The Gruide also may be observed to retain that peculiar loose- 
ness and delicate texture of plumage which are conspicuous in 
the gallinaceous tribe, from which they immediately recede, and 
of which the Struthio of Linnæus may be considered the type. 
In that singular genus by which we enter among the Faders, the 
Psophia of Linnæus, this affinity is obviously discernible. In 
form and plumage it at first sight appears an Ostrich in minia- 
ture ; while it retains the brilliancy and changeableness of colour 
natural to the gallinaceous tribes, but so distinct from the sober 
hues of the Waders, that it alone of the order is found to possess 
them. I feel some hesitation indeéd in saying to which order it 
actually belongs, until dissection determines the point. As yet 
the accounts we have of its manners, although not sufliciently 
satisfactory, would induce us to rank it with the Gruidaæ, to 
which its habit of standing in its sleep on one leg and drawing 
in its head between its shoulders, seems particularly to assimi- 
late it. It may here be added, that the family of Charadriade, 
which meets the Gruide at the other extremity of the order of 
Grallatores, bears a considerable affinity to the StrutAionide, or 
cursorial subdivision of the gallinaceous birds, in the conforma- 
tion of their feet. Both are distinguished from the remaining 
families of their respective orders by the absence of the hinder 
toe; a character which may be observed to be carried to a still 
* « Leurs habitudes sont plus terrestres, et leur nourriture plus vegetale que celle des 
genres suivans. Aussi ont elles un gésier musculeux et des cæcums assez longs."—Cu- 
vier, Regne Anim. tom. i. p. 471. 
3H 2 greater 
