402 AVES. 



ORDER VI. 



PALMIPEDES. 



These birds are characterized by their feet, formed for 

 natation, tliat is to say, placed far back on the body, attached 

 to short and compressed tarsi, and with palmated toes. Their 

 dense and polished plumage saturated with oil, and the thickly 

 set down which is next to their skin, protect them from the 

 water in which they live. They are the only birds whose 

 beak surpasses which it sometimes does to a considerable ex- 

 tent the length of their feet, and this is so, to enable them to 

 search for their food in the depths below, while they swim on 

 the surface. Their sternum is very long, affording a com- 

 plete guard to the greater part of their viscera, having, on 

 each side, but one emargination or oval foramen, filled up 

 with membrane. Their gizzard is usually muscular, the cseca 

 long, and the inferior larynx simple ; in one family, however, 

 the latter is so inflated as to form cartilaginous capsules. 



This order admits of a tolerably precise division into four 

 families. 



FAMILY I. 



BRACHYPTER^. 



A part of this family has some external afiinities with that of 

 the Gallinulse. Their legs, placed further back than in any 

 other birds, renders walking painful to them, and obliges them, 

 when on land, to stand vertically. In addition to this, as 

 most of them have but feeble powers of flight, and as some of 

 them are wholly deprived of that faculty, we may consider 

 them as exclusively attached to the surface of the water: 

 their plumage is extremely dense, and its surface frequently 

 polished, presenting a silvery lustre. They swim under wa- 

 ter, using their wings with almost as much effect as though 

 they were fins. Their gizzard is muscular, and their cseca 



