406 Mr. N. A. Vigors on the Natural Affinities 



more distant orders, the JVading 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 : 



pedibusc^nngeruibus JRaptores, or Blrds of Prey. 



Birds endowed with feet formed for 



fR. 

 (.In 



grasping. ^.-^ s ESsoRES, or Pcrching Birds. 



P««*„, w.o„^n„,«u»,« .... TRasores, III., or Gallinaceous Birds. 



Birds endowed with feet incapable • GrALLATORES, 111., OT Wadlug Birds. 



"'■ g^'^^p'"?- [Natatores, ///., or Webfooted Birds. 



These divisions deviate in no respect from the long established 

 orders of Linnaeus, 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- 

 marj' 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 Linnaeus im- 

 mediately presents itself as answering this description, where 



the 



