30 Mr. W.S. Macteay on the Comparative Anatomy 
The analogy of the Rasores to the Ruminating Animals was 
first, I believe, mentioned by Linnzeus in the Systema Nature. 
It has since his days been copied and copied, until now it 
almost becomes a sort of heresy to inquire into its accuracy. 
I am not, however, aware that any reason for this analogy has 
ever been assigned, beyond the fact,—that one order affords the 
principal part of those birds which are domesticated by man for 
purposes of food; and the other, the principal part of quadru- 
peds which are destined to the same purpose. Now, granting 
even this domestication not to be the work of art, but to be an 
analogy really existing in nature, | would observe,—setting the 
whole family of Anatide aside,—that the Glires afford us many 
eatible or domesticated animals, such as the Capromys and 
Rabbit; and the Grallatores afford us similar instances in the 
Snipe and Psophia. If some Rasores be said, like the Pecora, 
to have ornamental appendages to the head, so it must be re- 
membered has the Crowned Crane; whereas no rasorial bird 
is truly horned, like the Palamedea. But it may be worth while 
to take into consideration successively the grand characteristics 
of the Rasores, as given by ornithologists to distinguish them 
from all other birds. 
The Rasores are, properly speaking, frugivorous birds; by 
which I do not mean eating fruits only, but all manner of seeds 
or grain. Now this character of being frugivorous applies much 
more to the Glires than the Ungulata, which are truly herbivorous, 
and only feed on grain in an artificial or domesticated state. To 
begin, then, with the rasorial or scratching powers of gallina- 
ceous fowls ; these are certainly the most burrowing of frugivo- 
rous birds: now the most burrowing of frugivorous quadrupeds 
are certainly not the Ungulata, but the Glires. These birds are 
characterized by the shortness of their wings and the weakness 
of their pectoral muscles. Now if we inquire whether it is among 
the 
