324 THE LIFE OF A BIRD. 



can imitate the actions of the parent bird in 

 scratching up the ground, and then sharply trying 

 to inspect it in the search for food. No conditions 

 can be more opposite than these. In the one the 

 bird appears in a well-developed state, and capable 

 of exercising many of its faculties ; in the other, 

 the poor weak and helpless creature presents us 

 with a spectacle of debility and apparent imper- 

 fection. In one or other of these two conditions a 

 very large number of birds are when young; either 

 they are excluded from the shell, feeble, naked, 

 blind, and dependent on their parents for support, 

 or, on exclusion, are able to run about, and pro- 

 vide food for themselves the moment they quit 

 the shell. This fact, which has a very general 

 application, has been made the basis of a system 

 of arranging birds into two divisions ; the one 

 containing those the young of which are in one, 

 the second in which they are in the other, of these 

 two conditions at birth. It does not, however, 

 appear that this division is true to nature ; and it 

 has not, in consequence, obtained acceptance 

 among the most learned in ornithological science. 

 A recent attempt has been made, in the pages 

 of the Zoologist, to call attention again to this 



