130 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 



to a public breakfast in the newly-expelled litter of 

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

 itself guide 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 flies 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 ready wing, and have much more com- 

 mand of the air than the true gallinidx ; 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 are, in many 

 of the species at least, migratory, and they both 

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

 in countless flocks : the gallinidae 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 



