that connect the Orders and Families of Birds. 483 



resembles them in the similar appendage to the plumage of the 

 head. This group leads directly to Coturnix, Briss., and the true 

 Perdix, where it has indeed been generally arranged, and from 

 which it has been chiefly separated by the defalcation of a nail to 

 the hinder toe. From Perdix we proceed to Pterocles, Temm., 

 which, by its half-plumed tarsus, is intermediate between that 

 genus and the true Tetrao. By means of Lagopus, Cuv., in which 

 the toes as well as the legs are feathered, we arrive at the singular 

 genus Syrrhaptes of M. Illiger, which is immediately connected 

 with the Ortygis of the same author, by the entire deficiency of 

 the hind toe. With these groups the genus Tinamtis, Lath, cor- 

 responds by the slight conformation of the same member, the 

 joint of which is feeble, and the nail scarcely developed. This 

 group leads us back again to Cryptonyx, which we may remem- 

 ber has no nail to the joint of the hinder toe. The whole of 

 these last-mentioned groups thus united correspond also in the 

 shortness and weakness of their tails. 



Those birds of the latter family, which exhibit a weakness or 

 a deficiency in the hinder toe, lead us at once to the three-toed 

 groups of the Strut hionidce, with the bills of which, more particu- 

 larly that of Rhea, those of some species of Tinamus correspond*. 

 This family contains the " Brevipeiines" of M. Cuvier, together 

 with the genus Otis of Linnajus, which evidently agrees with 

 them in their principal characters. If corresponds also with the 

 order ^'Cursores" of M. Temminck, with the exception of the 

 genus Cur sarins of Dr. Latham, which possesses more of the 

 characters of the Wading than of the Gallinaceous order ; but 

 with which the present family will still be found to preserve its 

 affinity by means of that circular disposition which has hitherto 

 been seen to prevail throughout the divisions of ornithology. 



* Rostri (sc. Crypturi, 111., Tinami, Lath.,) mira conformitas cum rostro Rhea est. 

 Illiger, Prod. p. 245. 



VOL. XIV. 3 R The 



