70 Vertebrata. 



captured by the early voyagers, and was extirpated 

 in the seventeenth century. 



41. Order 8, Scraping birds (Rasores). This 

 large and economically important order includes the 



FIG. 31. poultry, turkeys, pheasants, 



grouse, partridge, &c., heavy 

 plump-bodied birds, with com- 

 paratively small rounded wings, 

 weak in flight, and with a mode- 

 rate length of beak and legs; 

 they have stout blunt claws, the 

 hind toe being raised above the 

 level of the others. The name of the order is derived 

 from the habit common to most of them of scraping 

 in searching for their food in or on the ground. The 

 tarsus often bears spurs, especially in the males, and 

 the plumage is close and often brilliantly coloured, as 

 in the peacocks and pheasants. Many of them have 

 naked areas on the head, where the skin is soft 

 and vascular, forming wattles or crests. As they are 

 mostly grain-eaters, they have large muscular gizzards, 

 capacious crops, and long intestines. Our common 

 domestic fowls are natives of India, as also is the 

 peacock and that most gorgeously coloured bird the 

 Impeyan pheasant, whose plumage has a rich metallic 

 lustre. The golden pheasant is a native of China, the 

 turkey of America. In Australia the order is repre- 

 sented by the mound-birds and brush turkeys, which 

 hatch their eggs in ' hot-beds ' formed of large masses 

 of decaying vegetable matters which they heap together 

 for the purpose. 



42. Order 9, Grallae. This group consists of long- 



