INTRODUCTION. XXXvii 



These two orders, vi^., the Natatores and Grallatores, 

 comprise the 'Water Hrds' of popular writers ou 

 Ornithology. 



Still looking to the feet, we find a certain number of 

 birds with the leg feathered to the tarsus, or beyond it, 

 with the feet strong, the claws blunt, ' and with the hind 

 toe (in most) very small, and above the plane of the others. 

 Whilst, in the two last orders, there was a great variety in 

 the form of the beak, here it is usually short, and vaulted, 

 and the nostrils are covered by a soft tumid scale. The 

 birds are plump and heavy with short wings, and the head 

 small. When, to these characters, we add that a fifth rudi- 

 mentary toe is frequently present, in the form of a spur, 

 every one must see at once that the Game birds or 

 Gallinaceous birds are intended. These are the Gallinas 

 of Linnseus and Cuvier, the Gallinacei of Yieillot, and 

 the Rasores of A'^igors and Swainson. In this, as well 

 as in the last order, the hallux is occasionally wanting, 

 and there is frequently a rudiment of a web between, 

 the anterior toes. From Gallinaceous birds most Ornitho- 

 logists now separate the Pigeons, which differ from the 

 true Rasores by their more perfect hind toe, on the same 

 plane as the anterior toes, by their more slender and less 

 vaulted beak, and also by the fact of their young being, 

 when hatched, callow and helpless, instead of being feather- 

 ed, and able to run, as in the true Game birds. This phy- 

 siological difference, however, exists, also, both among the 

 wading and swimming birds, which are not usually divided 

 in consequence (although Bonaparte latterly did so) ; and 

 the Pigeons are confessedly nearer to the Gallinacea3 than to 

 any of the Insessorial birds. The Pigeons constitute the 

 Columbse of Willoughby and others, and the Gemitores of 

 Blyth, which I shall for convcuicnee adopt as a sub-order, 



