REPORT ON ZOOLOGY. 169 



four orders are taken from lUiger*, viz. Raptores {Raptatores, 

 111.), Rasores, Grallatores, and Natatores\. Mr. Vigors has 

 traced out the chain of affinities which connects the above 

 groups, and endeavoured to show that it returns into itself, 

 forming a circle. Latreille in his arrangement^ follows Cuvier, 

 with some slight modifications. Thus, he has a primary divi- 

 sion of the whole class into the two sections of Terrestres 

 and Aqiiatici : he has also made a distinct order of the Co- 

 lumbcB and Alectrides, Vieill., to which he gives the name 

 of Passerigalli. Wagler's orders § are more numerous than 

 even those of Temminck, and deserve to be considered in many 

 cases rather as natural families. He has annexed a synop- 

 sis of the genera of birds, arranged in the order of their affi- 

 nities||. In 1831, M. Lesson published his Trait4 (V Ornitho- 

 logie, containing the result of a careful examination of the col- 

 lections at Paris, to which in some measure it serves as an 

 accompanying catalogue. In this arrangement, which professes 

 to be according to the natural system, we have a primary division 

 of birds into Anomalous and Normal, these groups being ana- 

 logous toM. L'Herminier's subclasses, and characterized in like 

 manner from the sternum and its appendages. The former com- 

 prises the five genera of Struthio, Rhea, Casuarius, Dromaius 

 and Apteryx^, The latter is divided into orders, on the whole 

 similar to Cuvier's, the Scansores, however, forming only a sub- 

 order among the Passeres. The Columhce and genus Penelope, 

 Merr., which Cuvier associates with his Gallinaces, are also 

 referred to the Passeres, where they form a portion of another 

 suborder, called from Latreille Passerigalli. In the same year 

 (1831), Mr. Swainson published the second volume of the Faun. 

 Bar. Amer., in which he has stated his views with respect to the 

 natural cirrangement of birds, although he has only illustrated 

 them at length with reference to one order. Mr. Swainson's 

 principles, which have been before alluded to, lead him to re- 



• C. lUigeri Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium. Berol. 1811. 

 A work extremely useful even at the present day, on account of its containing 

 a very complete terminology with reference to the above two classes. 



t Mr. Vigors places the Strutliionidcs among the Rasores. By Cuvier they 

 are associated with the tvading birds. 



X Fayn. Nat. § Natiirliches System, SfC. 



II Wagler had previously pubUshed, in 1827, a portion of a work entitled 

 Systema Avium. It was not so much, however, a systematic arrangement of 

 birds, as a collection of treatises on different genera, those being selected in the 

 first instance which he had studied most thoroughly. It was his intention to have 

 arranged them afterwards in a systematic table. The work, however, was never 

 completed, and its talented author has recently met with a premature death. 



H See a paper by Mr. Yarrell on this anomalous genus iu Zool. Trans., vol. i. 

 p. 71. 



