1883.] UTILITY OF BIRDS IN AGRICULTURE. 77 



- We cannot stop now to define all these orders, but will simply 

 say that the system of which these eleven orders form the basis, 

 especially of North American birds, though there are very few 

 changes to be made to have the system answer for birds every- 

 where throughout the world, proves one of the most simple and 

 most expressive of the real position held by this family in nature 

 of any yet devised. It is only those extreme ornithologists, who 

 strive to render difiScult that which they should render easy, whose 

 innovations we have to dread. The greatest change, you v/ill per- 

 ceive, has been made in the second order, which the new system 

 has called the- Picariae or Picarine or woodpecker-like birds, but 

 which the old system has named respectively Strisores, or those 

 birds whose third toe is capable of being retracted, so that 

 the bird can stand with two toes in front and two behind, or 

 three toes in front and one behind, at pleasure; also Scansores or 

 climbers; also Zygodactyli, or birds having their claws arranged 

 two in front and two behind, and containing the woodpeckers 

 alone. Now it was found that the woodpeckers differed in them- 

 selves in this respect, so that any order which answered for part 

 really answered for all, so that all those birds whose structure is 

 really so near alike, and whose definition really presented formerly 

 so many puzzling features to the ornithologist, are now classed 

 together and put in their true place, after the Perching birds, and 

 hefore the Parrots, which connect them with the Raptoros; thus 

 the succession of orders is complete and perfectly natural. 

 Another seemingly great but in reality simple change is the mak- 

 ing of four out of one former order; thus the original Natatores 

 becomes Lamellirostres, or Ducks, etc., Steganopodes or Pelicans, 

 etc., Longipeunes, or Gulls, etc., and Pygopodes or Diving birds. 

 Each of these appears separate and distinct enough to form an 

 order by itself, and especially when are taken into consideration 

 the birds which are placed in them from their abodes in other 

 countries. But this matter will appear better in print than it does 

 spoken here, so let us proceed at once, with this preliminary view 

 of the subject, to the main body of our discussion. 



PART II. 



THE UTILITY OF BIRDS IN AGRICULTURE. 



The utility of birds in agriculture is a subject about which very 

 little has been written, as it is one about which comparatively little 



