PROCEEDINGS OF METROPOLITAN SOCIETIES. 149 
of the foot for perching, for ground habits, and for swimming, af- 
forded available characters ; whence the terms Insessipedes, Telluri- 
pedes, and Natantipedes, were accordingly proposed ; though it was 
remarked that these more general grand divisions were of little 
practical value, and their limits could only be arbitrarily assigned. 
Proceeding next to treat of his several orders more in detail, the 
author first enumerated the many peculiar characters of the Scan- 
sores, or Parrots, and stated his reasons for placing them at the head 
of the system, preceding the Raplores, as among Mammalia (by ge- 
neral consent) the Quadrumana do the Carnivora. He knew of no 
character, beyond the reversed outer toe, wherein the Parrots resem- 
bled the other Zygodactyli of Temminck and others, from all which 
they differ most essentially in the conformation of the skeleton, of 
the digestive organs, the organ of voice, and even of the foot itself, 
on which the division Zygodactyli of other systematists solely rested. 
Their brain is more highly organized than in any other birds, 
whereas that of the other yoke-footed tribes was stated to be remark- 
ably low ; and some additional characters, presenting a curious ana- 
logy with the Quadrumana, were likewise indicated. The utter 
distinctness of the Parrots, also, from all other birds, the absence of 
even a tendency or approach to a gradation or transit into any other 
group, furnished occasion for some remarks on the popular theory, 
which contends for the existence of intermediate forms connecting 
every group together by a series of links; a theory which, it was 
asserted, could never be maintained by those who have investigated 
the anatomical structure of the various orders of birds, as laid down 
in the communication then before the society. - 
The Raptores, or birds of prey, required little definition, as so 
obvious a group had already met with general acceptation. It 
would be sufficient, therefore to call attention to one fact, of which 
few naturalists seemed to be aware or adequately appreciated. The 
genera Falco and Vultur of Linneus, on the one hand, and Stria 
on the other, present strongly-marked and invariable distinctions, 
both in the conformation of the skeleton and digestive organs, which 
distinctions, it was affirmed, are as forcibly maintained in the most 
hawk-like Owls and the most owl-like Hawks, as in those which 
have been deemed the types of their respective families : conforma- 
bly with which distinctive difference, in kind rather than in degree, 
Mr. Blyth proposed to arrange the Raptores into two tribes, which 
he designated, for uniformity of termination with other equivalent 
groups, Reteclirostres and Inteclirostres. 
The Strepitores were treated of in considerable detail, and re- 
solved into three primary groups, and many subordinate ones, as 
shewn in the annexed tabular representation. 
