so Mr. W. S. Macleay on the Comparative Anatomy 



The analogy of the Rasores to the Ruiliinating Animals was 

 first, I believe, mentioned by Linnaeus in the Systema Naturce. 

 It has since his days been copied and copied, until now it 

 almost becomes a sort of heresy to inquire into its accuracy. 

 I am not, however, aware that any reason for this analogy has 

 ever been assigned, beyond the fact, — that one order affords the 

 principal part of those. birds which are domesticated by man for 

 purposes of food ; and the other, the principal part of quadru- 

 peds which are destined to the same purpose. Now, granting 

 even this domestication not to be the work of art, but to be an 

 analogy really existing in nature, 1 would observe, — setting the 

 whole family of AnatidcE aside, — that the Glires afford us many 

 eatible or domesticated animals, such as the Capromys and 

 Rabbit ; and the Grallatores afford us similar instances in the 

 Snipe and Psophia. If some Rasores be said, like the Pecora, 

 to have ornamental appendages to the head, so it must be re- 

 membered has the Crowned Crane ; whereas no rasorial bird 

 is truly horned, like the Palamedea. But it may be worth while 

 to take into consideration successively the grand characteristics 

 of the Rasores, as given by ornithologists to distinguish them 

 from all other birds. ^cj 



The Raso7-es are, properly speaking, frugivorous birds ; by 

 which I do not mean eating fruits only, but all manner of seeds 

 or grain. Now this character of being frugivorous applies much 

 more to the Glires than the Ungnlata, which are truly herbivorous, 

 and only feed on grain in an artificial or domesticated state. To 

 begin, then, with the rasorial or scratching powers of gallina- 

 ceous fowls ; these are certainly the most burrowing of frugivo- 

 rous birds : now the most burrowing of frugivorous quadrupeds 

 are certainly not the Ungulata, but the Glires. These birds are 

 characterized by the shortness of their wings and the weakness 

 of their pectoral muscles. Now if we inquire whether it is among 



the 



