4'2'2 



B- 1 II D. 



members from which a general notion of the class 

 can be best formed. 



Omnivorous bills. In the order of Cuvier's classifi- 

 cation, an outline of which has been given in a former 

 section, the bills of the dentirostres should follow those 

 of the birds of prey; but though these have generally 

 a notch in the upper mandible, and often in the under 

 one, none of them has the bill suited for tearing the 

 recent flesh of warm-blooded animals, as in the fal- 

 cons, and their claws are so formed as to be organs of 

 motion and support, and not killing instruments. 

 Their general habit, if birds which are so diversified 

 in their appearances, powers, haunts, and manners, 

 can be said to have a general habit, is that of feeding 

 upon insects and their larva?, in what may be called 

 the " free state ;" that is, when they are so situated as 

 the birds have not to hawk for them on the wing, or 

 to dig them out of the earth, the bark of trees, or other 

 places of concealment. 



The bills, in order to accord with that general 

 habit, do not require the firm texture and powerful 

 action of those of the accipitres. As many of them 

 have to seize their prey quickly, as they often catch 

 it while it is on the wing, though they do not fly after 

 it, rapidity of motion, both in darting at the food, 

 and in opening and shutting, with firmness and sharp- ' 

 ness at the tip, are the requisites of such a bill ; and 

 lightness in its general structure is essential to the 

 quick motion. Hence, these bills are, in very many 

 of the species, so thin and weak that they are not 

 able to break the coat of a vegetable seed between 

 the edges of the tomia, and their owners are called 

 soft-billed birds. If an arrangement were to be 

 attempted from the bill, as adapted to a certain species 

 of food, the insectivorous birds would have to be 

 taken from several orders, because the feet and wings 

 vary with the manner in which the birds get at their 

 food. 



The omnivorous bills, and even many of those of 

 the birds that live much upon seeds, the conirostres 

 of Cuvier, have considerably more resemblance to 

 those of birds of prey than the dentirostres. They 

 vary much, as might be supposed in birds which inha- 

 bit so many places ; but perhaps the most typical of 

 the whole, and the one which takes up the connexions 

 most closely and naturally from the vultures, is the 

 bill of the raven, a resemblance to which may again 

 be traced through many genera. 



Raven. 



This structure of bill is intermediate between those 

 of the vultures which feed principally upon carrion, 

 and the woodpeckers and analogous races which 

 obtain their food (chiefly insects and larvae) by dig- 

 ging or thrusting into cracks in the bark of trees, and 

 fissures of rocks. It is inclining to straight, and can 

 inflict a severe wound by thrusting ; it is ridged and 

 arched in the oilmen, and firm in the tomia, so that it 

 can cut by the pressure of the mandibles ; it is a little 



hooked at the tip, and waved in the tomia, so that it 

 can keep a firm hold, while the owner tugs and tears 

 by the motions of the neck ; and as it is long, the 

 snap of the point is very sharp from the rapidity of 

 the motion. It is, in short, a very serviceable bill 

 a bill of all work, as it were ; and when properly 

 examined, it is found to answer well with the omnivo- 

 rous habit of the owner. 



And the raven, though not very numerous in any 

 place, and though dwelling in solitude, pairing for life, 

 and not being very prolific (as is the case with most 

 birds of prey), is one of the most generally distributed 

 of birds. Almost every other species has some 

 country which it can claim to a very considerable 

 extent as its own ; and even though it is migrant, and 

 passes the different seasons in places some thousands 

 of miles asunder, it returns with the season, not onh 

 to the same latitude, and to the same land, but often 

 to the very same spot. The raven is no migrant, 

 except in shifting a little with the seasons as the sup- 

 ply of food varies, but never quitting the same district; 

 and yet there is no country in which the raven is not 

 found native. The margin of the desert, of the jungle, 

 or of the forest, in the hottest climates, the heights 

 of alternate cliff and copse in temperate climates, or the 

 rocks and heaths, and even the lichen-clad margins 

 of the inhabited earth near the poles, are all equally 

 the abodes of the raven ; and let the sun blaze, the 

 wind blow, the rain pelt, or the snow drive, with 

 ever so much intensity, his dusky wing or firmly set 

 foot is in its element, and the wreck of the rest of 

 nature is with him the season of plenty. 



The raven is thus an exceedingly typical bird ; and 

 from the numerous and varied habits, and structures 

 in accordance with those habits, which are combined 

 in him, he is what may be called a sort of central 

 type, in which the characters of many other races 

 may be found, though rudimental, or at least partially 

 concealing each other. Those characters are also 

 chiefly combined in the bill of the raven ; though in 

 his feet he approaches the vultures, and in his wings 

 partially the low-flying hawks. 



In tracing the gradation from the raven through 

 the analogous races, we find that the bill gets less 

 and less powerful in those characters in which it most 

 resembles those of the vultures, namely, its adaptation 

 for tugging and tearing the flesh of animals from the 

 bones. But the raven is also a preyer. He rarely 

 though sometimes, hawks on the wing, and when he 

 does so, he strikes with the bill, not with the claws ; 

 but he preys much on the ground, on young birds, 

 the smaller mammalia, and even the larger ones 

 when disease or casualty brings them within his 

 reach. 



Of the others, the carrion crow most resembles 

 the raven ; but its bill is neither so formidable as an 

 instrument of slaughter, nor so capable of tearing the 

 flesh of recent prey. The culmen of the upper man- 

 dible is not so much arched, nor the tip so much 

 hooked, and consequently the bill can neither cut so 

 well nor hold so firmly. This bird accordingly eats 

 large animals, chiefly in the state of carrion ; and 

 finds much of his food in the eggs and callow young 

 of the ground gallinidae. 



The other crows, on to the rook, have the bill more 

 and more approximating to straightness ; and in that 

 bird we have certainly an approximation to the 

 ground birds which feed upon seeds ; and different 

 as they are in their appearance, and many of their 



