38o DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



the palmipedes, so called from the membranes 

 which unite their toes. The legs in all of them 

 are placed very far back, which fits them the 

 better for swimming. This order comprehends 

 four families, the brachyptera or divers, the 

 longipennes, the totipalmes, and the lamelliroslres. 

 Twenty-seven species of the first family fill up 

 the forty-seventh, forty-eighth, and forty-ninth 

 cases. On the first shelves of the forty-seventh 

 are the colymbi: although their wings are very 

 short, they go very far inland from one pond to 

 another ; their close, smooth, and silvery plu- 

 mage is employed as a fur. Some species carry 

 their young under their wings when swimming. 

 The divers in the lower part of the case breed 

 in the north, but come to the coasts of France in 

 the winter. The guillemots (urici. Lath.), on the 

 second shelf of the forty-eighth case, are stupid 

 birds which live on fish and crabs, and build their 

 nest in the clefts of steep rocks. The colymbus 

 grylle changes its colour more decidedly than has 

 been yet observed in any other bird, being white 

 in winter, and quite black in summer. "We have 

 here an individual killed during the interme- 

 diate season, whose plumage is white, speckled 

 with black. By its side is the small cotymbus, 

 known to travellers by the name of the Green- 

 land pigeon, which lives in the north, and builds 



