416 



BIRD. 



a much greater, and indeed an inconvenient number 

 of primary divisions. 



Cuvier divides the order into five principal groups 

 or families, to which he has to append some genera 

 which do not conveniently come within any of the 

 groups. 



The first group, Brevipeiuies (short-wings), con- 

 sists of the ostriches and other land birds which can- 

 not fly ; but the name is not very accurate ; and the 

 group to be natural and preserve the gradation should 

 include some birds which can fly, such as the bus- 

 tards, which form the connecting link between the 

 gallinidae and the ostriches. 



The second group, Pressirostrcs, includes those 

 birds which have the bill hard and compressed late- 

 rally ; and which are long on the legs, and have the 

 hind toe wanting or merely rudimental. Some of 

 them are bank birds, but none of them wade deeply 

 in the water ; and their proper character is that of 

 running birds. In a natural arrangement, some of 

 them should precede and some follow the ostriches. 



The third group, Cultrirostres (knife-shaped, 

 or ploughshare-shaped bills), is pretty natural, though 

 the epithet does not express the shape of the bills of 

 many of them. They are, in general, long-flighted 

 birds, ranging far and wide, especially in those coun- 

 tries which are subject to alternate drought and 

 inundation. Many of them are true waders, and 

 perhaps the most typical birds of all the grallideae. 



The fourth group, Longirostres (long-bills), is 

 also tolerably natural, though the single epithet 

 " long" is hardly sufficiently expressive of bills of so 

 many different shapes and textures, as are possessed 

 by these birds. Some genera of this group have so 

 much the habits of the former, that there is a very 

 natural transition from the one to the other : but 

 very many of them are marsh birds, seeking their 

 food in boggy earth, sludge and ooze ; and these in 

 general have the bill flexible, and provided with 

 nerves and vessels, so that it is a more sentient organ 

 than the horny bills. As these find their food more 

 by the touch of the bill than by sight, they are often 

 nocturnal or twilight feeders, and remain in the cover 

 of the tall aquatics or marsh plants during the day. 

 On this account they are often really resident in 

 places from which they are supposed to migrate. 



The fifth and last group, Mucrodactylcs (large- 

 toes), differ more in their characters in proportion to 

 the number of the genera. They are, as it were, on 

 the confine of the order, and begin to partake some- 

 thing of the swimming character. This is the case 

 with the coots, which have the feet lobed, and so 

 articulated that they are not very efficient for walking. 

 There are others, again, which, though they are 

 not found in arid places, can hardly be said to be 

 aquatic in any of their habits, or even to resort to the 

 margin of the waters, of which the common corn-crake 

 is a familiar instance, These, and some others, have 

 considerably more affinity with the gallinidae than 

 many of the other genera, and even groups, which 

 are interpolated between them in the system. The 

 pratincoles, flamingoes, and some other genera which 

 Cuvier appends to this group, without meaning it to 

 be understood that they naturally belong to it, are 

 also of a mixed character. The pratincoles have at 

 least some of the characters of those insectivorous 

 birds which have syndactylic feet, and also some of 

 those of the gallinidae ; and it does not appear that, 

 though they frequent the margins or surfaces of the 



waters, they are in any respect wading birds. It is 

 also not very easy to assign the proper place of the 

 flamingoes in any system which pretends to be quite 

 natural. 



We must not, however, either wonder, or be per- 

 plexed in our inquiries, at these apparent anomalies. 

 It has been hinted, that the rich places of nature are 

 those at which birds appear to interfere with, or, if 

 the expression may be allowed, to overlap each other, 

 agreeing in some of their characters, and differing in 

 others; and as the margins of the waters are the 

 richest places, and the places which are most per- 

 manently rich in the food of birds, it is natural to 

 expect that upon these frhere should be the greatest 

 interference of race with race, and consequently the 

 greatest difficulty in so separating them from each 

 other, as to give distinctness to their systematic ar- 

 rangement. 



PALMIPEDES, or webbed-footed birds, form Cuvier's 

 last order of this class ; and in so far as that they can 

 launch themselves upon the waters, and be in their 

 element there, they are a natural order. But they 

 are not the only birds which can swim, for some of 

 those of the former order can swim readily, and 

 others can do it occasionally, although their feet are 

 not webbed, but have only partial membranes, more 

 or less produced, attached to their toes. 



If we were to take a regular gradation in the birds 

 of this order from those which have the feet the least 

 adapted for acting upon the water, to those which 

 have them the most so, we should begin with those 

 which have the toes only lobed and margined, and 

 proceed to those which have all the four toes united 

 by one membrane or web. But the other active 

 systems of the birds interfere with this arrangement, 

 and their varying powers of flight interfere with the 

 classification which otherwise might be founded on 

 the structure of the feet, and render it imperfect. 



Aquatic birds have wings of very varied structure. 

 Some have about the longest and most powerful ones 

 of all the feathered tribes ; some have them short and 

 round, and some are almost wingless, though there is 

 no sea-bird so completely so as the apteryx. Their 

 wings are also used for very varied purposes. Some 

 use them habitually in feeding; some in ranging the 

 surface of the ocean ; and some chiefly for migration 

 from place to place, as changes of season and of food 

 may require. 



Their bills vary nearly as much in structure. 

 Some have the form of spears for transfixing fishes, 

 upon which the birds dash from a considerable 

 height; some are toothed in the tomia, for catching 

 the finny prey as they drive through the waters ; 

 some are fitted for cutting and tearing the carcasses 

 of the larger sea animals , which are often floating 

 dead on the surface ; some are adapted for collecting 

 oil on the surface of the waters ; and some for dab- 

 bling in the mud on the shallows. 



Organs so differently formed, and applied to so 

 many purposes in so many ways, render the division 

 of aquatic birds into natural groups no easy matter, 

 though some of the groups are as distinct and well 

 defined as any of those of the land birds. Cuvier 

 arranges them into four tribes. 



The first of these consists of Divers (Brach i/ptt ra, 

 or "short wings"), which have some affinity with the 

 shortest winged and most aquatic of the bank birds, 

 and they run on, becoming more and more birds of 

 the water, and less birds of the air or the land, till 



