INTRODUCTION. 
pe great division of the Class Aves called GALLINA, 
sometimes designated Rasores (Latim rasor, a 
scraper), from the habit possessed by its members 
of scratching the ground in search of food, 1s 
composed of two suborders and four families. Of 
the latter we have to do at the present time with 
only two—TeETRAONID® and PHASIANID®, contain- 
ing those species which have fowd-fect, in contradistinc- 
tion to the other two families—MEeEGAPopDID® and 
Cracip#&, which have feet like a pigeon. 
These four families comprise between three and four 
hundred species, distributed throughout the world, and 
are of the very highest importance in their relation to 
man, affording food to multitudes of people, and the 
members of the PHASIANID® are the sources of all the 
domesticated poultry found in the world to-day. 
In form the birds are usually heavy in body with 
rather stout legs and feet, small heads and curved bills, 
with the nostrils placed in a membrane covered by a 
scale, and the wings are short and rounded. In some 
subfamilies the males, and occasionally the females, 
have the legs armed with spurs, and certain species have 
several spurs at a time upon each leg. The sternum, or 
breastbone, has a double bifurcation on each side, the 
fissures wide and deep, and provides but little space for 
the attachment of the great pectoral muscles, which how- 
ever are well developed, and give the plump appearance 
to the breast so characteristic of these birds. The tail is 
of various shapes, and in the PHASIANID is sometimes 
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