that connect the Orders and Families of Birds. 411 



the Insessores, their divided toes and comparatively short legs, 

 are weakened by the resemblance which those members bear 

 to the same parts of the contiguous order in their general struc- 

 ture, and more particularly in the bluntness of the nails, so 

 strongly indicative of the rasorial* habits of the Gallinaceous 

 tribes, and so strikingly contrasted with the sharpness of the 

 nails in the-Linnean Passeres. They are much more nearly allied 

 to these latter tribes by their habits of perching and building their 

 nests in trees or rocks, by the absence of the spur on the legs 

 of the male, and by the inferior number of their tail-feathers. 

 But these characters are equally found in a group of birds, 

 confessedly gallinaceous ; namely, the genus Crax of Linnaeus, 

 which meets them at the opposite extremity of that order. Such 

 points of resemblance, in fact, although not sufficiently strong 

 to assign them a place among the Perchers, are yet sufficiently 



* The family of Columbida is one to which 1 have of late paid particular attention, 

 and in the details of which I have found a singular affinity with the other Rasores, 

 that will not admit of their being disjoined from each other. The nature of my pre- 

 sent observations, too general to allow of my descending into particulars, prevents 

 my dweUing on the subject at present. I shall, however, extract a reference or two 

 from a popular work of the first authority, to evince the approximation in manners to 

 which 1 allude. Dr. Latham, speaking of the Columba Nicobarica, observes : " It is 

 a heavy bird, with rounded wings, and keeps on the ground in the manner of other 

 poultry, and like them feeds on grain, but occasionally eats insects and all kinds of 

 worms; will mix with other poultry, and roost with them on the trees at night: they 

 fly heavily and not a great way at a time, but run on the ground sufficiently fast ." Syn. 

 vol. viii. p. 8.5. ed. 2. — Of Colu7nba carunculata he says : " Its nest is made on the 

 ground. The young as soon as hatched are covered with grey down, and keep with 

 their mother, who covers them with the wings like a hen : these keep all together till they 

 pair for a new brood; in this, following the nature of other gallinaceous birds. The 

 young run on the ground like partridges, and the old ones call after them as a hen does 

 her chickens." lb. p. 86. — Of Columba passeriua : " Sloane mentions that these birds 

 feed on the ground as partridges, and spring as they do, taking a short flight, and again 

 ahghting on the ground." lb. p. 92. These quotations will be sufficient to direct the 

 judgment of those who may be inclined to form their opinion of the manners of the 

 Columbida from those of our European species. 



VOL. XIV. 3 H decisive 



