208 AFFINITIES AND GEOGRAPHICAL 



standing in a solitary distinction of characters, but only a kind 

 of starling adapted to special habits. Yet the reigning opinion 

 of naturalists, if true to itself, can in no way escape from the 

 absurdity to which this question reduces them. 



Near to the starlings, but perhaps only by collateral rela- 

 tionship, is an important genus, numerous in both Europe and 

 North America, the Larks (Alaudiclce), a ground-inhabiting, 

 seed-eating, innocent race, endeared to us by the habit so 

 noted in certain species of rising high in the air, and there 

 pouring out their beautiful and joyful songs. There are many 

 varieties of the Lark, adapted to life upon shores, in fields, and 

 amongst the woods. They possess a remarkably strong conical 

 beak for husking seeds, and which they occasionally employ 

 even in breaking nuts for the sake of the kernels. Perhaps 

 with the larks should be associated the pipits or titlings. The 

 Buntings (Emberizidce), comprising the yellow-hammer, ortolan, 

 &c., are a comparatively untuneful variation from the larks, 

 having a shorter bill, with a palatal knob, but generally similar 

 habits, insomuch that they are often caught in the same net. 

 From them again we pass to the Sparrows (Passeres), so widely 

 diffused and so well known, and to the Finches (Fringillidce), 

 the latter an extensive group of field birds, comprehending the 

 goldfinch, chaffinch, linnet, canary, cross-bill, &c. The most 

 conspicuous external feature of this series of birds is a hind 

 claw of unusual length and straightness. All are conirostral. 

 The Cuckoo is from many features entitled to a place in or 

 about this portion of the corvine stirps, though its zygodactyle 

 foot has caused it to be classed by naturalists in their purely 

 artificial order of Scansores or climbers. It is prevalent over 

 the whole world, including Australia, and is everywhere noted 

 for its habit of placing its eggs in the nests of other birds, that 

 its young may be hatched and brought up by them. As is 

 well known, the rearing of a young cuckoo in a nest costs the 

 life of all the foster mother's own progeny. Here occurs another 

 difficulty of a remarkable kind, for those who maintain that 

 each species has been the result of a special fiat ; for how 

 irreconcileable is it with all our ideas of immediate or special 

 arrangement, that a particular species can only be continued 

 by such a sacrifice ! The fact is, that the cuckoo is obliged by 

 its constitutional character to stay an unusually short time in 

 the northern regions where it produces its young. In our 

 country its normal stay is only from the middle of April to the 

 beginning of July. Belated in its approach to the nursing 



