412 



BIRD. 



impenetrable forests ; and the manners of these are 

 of course as little known as their haunts. 



Cuvier's fourth order, the gallinaceous or poultry 

 birds (GALLING, or rather GALMNIDA, for the other 

 genera have of course only resemblances to the com- 

 mon domestic cock (gal/its'), and are not identified 

 with it), form in many respects a natural order ; 

 because though there are great differences of appear- 

 ance and habit, and still greater difference of climate 

 and haunt, some, as the ptarmigan, dwelling only on 

 the mountain tops in cold countries, and others, as the 

 peacock and the jungle fowl, dwelling only in the 

 wooded parts of tropical climates, yet there is a 

 general character which runs through the whole. 

 They are not birds of powerful wing ; and though 

 many of them perch in trees, few or none of (hem 

 find their food there. They are ground birds ; and 

 only cull the seeds of those herbaceous plants which 

 they can reach when standing, and gather such other 

 seeds, insects, worms, and various succulent or fari- 

 naceous vegetable substances, or often animal ones 

 (for some of the genera are not very particular in that 

 respect) as they find on the surface, but scrape up 

 the rubbish with their feet, in search of such sub- 

 stances suited to their taste, as may be found under it. 

 The march of the males is stately, and they are often 

 very gay with ornamental plumage peculiar to their 

 sex. They are all, however, heavy and laborious 

 fliers ; and make but little use of their wings, except 

 when alarmed, or in reaching those perches upon 

 which they pass the night secure from the attacks of 

 foxes and other predatory mammalia which hunt 

 during the night but do not climb. 



The flight of the gallinidae is so peculiar, that it 

 might be taken as their descriptive character, with 

 fully as much propriety as any other action is of a 

 division of birds ; and certainly with more than 

 climbing can be as characteristic of the last order. 

 The domestic cock, for instance, is quite a soldier in 

 his wars; and like a gallant soldier (and he himself 

 is the type of pugnacious gallantry as well as the 

 original of the name) he fights for the honour of the 

 victory, and not, like a mercenary, for pay and " pro- 

 vend." When he leads forth the dames of his seraglio 

 to a public breakfast in the newly-expelled litter of 

 the stable, his strut is quite Oriental, and might of 

 itself lead one to the knowledge of his native clime ; 

 but when he attempts flight, there is a sad falling off; 

 the bravery of the soldier and the strut of the bashaw 

 are no more, and the lord of the dunghill vexes the 

 air with encumbering wing, and flics less gracefully 

 than a bat or a beetle. 



This laborious and painful flight, for it is certainly 

 laborious to the birds themselves, as they can continue 

 it only for a short distance, and if it is not painful to 

 them, it is painful to look at, is common to the whole 

 order properly so called ; and on this account Cuvier 

 appears to have departed from his usual attention to 

 structure as forming the basis of classification, in 

 uniting the pigeons with this order. The pigeons 

 are birds of powerful wing, and have as much com- 

 mand of the air as the true gallinidye have little ; and 

 besides, the habits of the races are in almost every 

 respect different from each other. Pigeons are 

 monogamous, and though they breed often, each brood 

 consists usually of only a single pair : the gallinidae 

 are in general, though not in all the species, polyga- 

 mous, breeding once, or at most twice in the year, 

 and their broods are numerous. Pigeons arc, in many 



of the species at least, migratory, and they both 

 migrate arid associate in numerous, and, in some cases, 

 in countless flocks : the gallinidte are never migrants, 

 and those species which are mountaineers, would rather 

 perish in their alpine habitations than descend to any 

 great distance on the plains ; and when they associate 

 with each other, it is at particular seasons rather than 

 habitually, and in families, or at most in packs of a 

 few families, and not in large flocks. Their daily 

 range is indeed so limited, and they use the wing so 

 little in seeking their food, that a very large flock of 

 them could not subsist in the same locality. 



Pheasants, though they have the same style of 

 flight as the rest, are certainly not the worst fliers ; 

 and yet there is a very striking difference between 

 the common pheasant and the common pigeon in 

 point of capability of endurance in the same locality. 

 Where pheasants are kept in numbers, a preserve is 

 made for them, which is understood to afford them 

 not only shelter, but the greater part of their food. 

 Common pigeon-house pigeons seldom have any pas- 

 ture preserved for them, and cultivators drive them 

 off from their crops. The native habitations of vast 

 numbers of the parent stock, too, are often in rocks 

 or places comparatively barren, where they must 

 range to great distances for their food for pigeons 

 require proportionally more food than the gallinidae, 

 and, indeed, than most other birds. 



Now if pheasants and pigeons naturally belonged 

 to the same order of birds, we might surely, under 

 these circumstances, expect that the pigeons should 

 suffer most from casualties. If not, there could 

 be but small propriety in uniting the two families 

 of birds into one order ; for if there is nothing 

 more of similarity in the several members of the 

 order than that structure of organ, or habit, 01 

 whatever else it may be upon which the order is 

 founded, then truly the formation of the order is a 

 very idle matter on the part of him who establishes 

 it, and a very deceptive matter to those who seek for 

 information from it. The name of the order, or other 

 group, should, no doubt, be founded upon one of the 

 most striking coincidences in the genera that compose 

 it ; but if there are not other coincidences behind to 

 which that one is the key, then any attempt to get 

 information from the system will be somewhat like an 

 attempt to get a knowledge of Macedonia from 

 Fluellin's comparison between it and Monmouth : 

 " There's a river at Monmouth, and I'll pe pound 

 there's a river at Macedonia ; and they call it Wye at 

 Monmouth, and it is out of my praius what they call 

 it at Macedonia; but it is as like as my fingers to my 

 fingers, and there's sawmons in them both." This, 

 though not brought out with the same graphic expo- 

 sure of its absurdity, is very often the kind of analogy 

 which the systematists in natural history propound for 

 the edification of mankind ; and even the acute mind 

 of Cuvier, which was less frequently bewildered than 

 ;hat of most naturalists, must have been lost in the 

 'og when he united the pigeons with the gallinidae. 



To those who already know the characters and 

 labits of birds, or any other animals, it is of little 

 consequence in what juxtaposition the several kinds 

 of them are presented ; but those who have the know- 

 edge to acquire, and resort to the system for aid in 

 ;he acquiring of it, of necessity conclude that there is 

 some general correspondence in the nature of those 

 which are united in the same order, or other division; 

 and if, as in the case of poultry and pigeons, there is 



