GEMITORES. 443 



but not of very varied forms ; few in Europe and temperate Asia ; 

 and moderately abundant in India, increasing in the Malayan 

 region both in types and numbers. Above 300 species are now 

 known, all of very pleasing coloration, some of them very beautiful, 

 and many adorned Avith bright metallic hues, and a rich change- 

 able gloss. Most of them are highly fitted as food for man, and 

 many are excellent eating. 



Pigeons may be said to be intermediate to Rasores and Insessores, 

 and Cuvier considered that they form the passage from one tribe 

 to the other. Some Ornithologists place them as an aberrant 

 family of the Rasores ; others as the last of the Insessores. They 

 approximate the Rasores by their vaulted beak, their large nasal 

 fossjB, covered by a soft membrane, their crop dilatable externally, 

 the form of their tarsus and foot, and their blunt nails, tlieir 

 massive form, and general physiognomy, and by their affording 

 excellent food ; whilst they hold to the Insessores by their mono- 

 gamous habits, the young being hatched blind and helpless, 

 the hind toe being on a level with the other three; and the short 

 tarsus never being spurred. In their internal anatomy, too, they 

 equally partake of both, having the thick gizzard of the Rasores 

 and the small coeca and simple gastric glands of the Insessores. 

 On the whole, I consider, with Wallace and others, that they 

 approach the Rasores more nearly than they do the Insessores. 



As stated in my Introduction, theoretically, I am inclined to 

 regard them as an aberrant division of the Rasores. They are 

 certainly hardly co-equal in value with the other five orders of 

 birds, and one argument might be drawn in favor of their being 

 rather a family than a tribe, from the fact of their presenting 

 so great an uniformity of structure throughout, the other orders 

 exhibiting a constant variation of type ; but, for convenience of 

 definition and practical purposes, I think it advisable to keep 

 them distinct as Gray, Bonaparte, and Blyth have done. 



The family of the Insessores to which, perhaps, they make 

 the nearest approach, is that of the Cuckoos, and the most 

 nearly related among the Rasores are the Cracidce, which agree 

 with them in the structure of their feet, and the Tinamidce, both 

 American groups. 



