4 ESSENTIAL CHARACTERS OF THE ORDERS. 



large, with the muscular coat thin, the epithelium hard and 

 rugous. Intestine short and wide, with small or obsolete coeca 

 in the diurnal, but in the nocturnal large and oblong. Feet 

 extremely small, with four toes, the anterior spreading ; claws 

 rather large, arched or curved, acute. Wings very long and 

 pointed. Tail of twelve feathers. PI. XXII. 



ORDER XII. JACULATORES. DARTERS. 



Bill large, angular, tapering, straight or arched, pointed ; 

 upper mandible with very short feathered nasal sinuses, and 

 without notches. Tongue very small. CEsophagus very wide, 

 funnel-shaped, without crop. Stomach large, round, with a 

 very thin muscular coat, and a soft rugous epithelium. Intes- 

 tine of moderate length, very slender ; no coeca ; cloaca very 

 large and globular. Feet remarkably small and feeble ; tarsus 

 very short ; toes short and very slender, the first small, broad 

 and flattened beneath, the anterior three parallel and united 

 in part of their length ; claws arched, compressed, acute. 

 Wings broad, rounded, with the first quill extremely small. 

 Tail of twelve feathers. PI. XXII. 



In commencing a new volume, in which there will neces- 

 sarily be much of the formality essential to the accurate de- 

 scription of organs, whether internal or external, one may, not 

 inaptly, indulge in a little preliminary recreation. A walk 

 into the fields cannot fail to refresh our feelings, enliven our 

 sympathies, and prepare us for the task, not altogether one of 

 unmixed delight, of composing or perusing eight hundred pages 

 of ornithology. A history unembellished by fiction cannot be 

 so entertaining as one in which facts are modified and accom- 

 modated to favourite theories, inferences drawn from loose 

 statements, precise details represented as unimportant, and 



