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The arrangements which have been most generally adopt- 

 ,ed in this country are slight modifications of those of 

 Linnaeus and Cuvier. Perhaps the one best known is that 

 . admitting seven orders, viz : 



Raptores, or birds of prey, 

 Insessores, or perching birds, 

 Scansores, or climbers, 

 Rasores, or scratchers, 

 Cursores, or runners, 

 Grallatores, or waders, 

 Natatoros, or swimmers. 



Most authors have put the birds of prey at the head of the 

 list, as the highest or most perfect birds. This on many 

 accounts seems wrong, for if we examine 1 those birds which 

 have all the characters that are commonly considered bird- 

 like in the greatest perfection, we shall find them not 

 among the Raptores, but among the singing birds of the 

 order Insessores in the arrangement above. Some authors 

 have put the parrots highest on account of their fleshy 

 tongues, analogous to those of mammals, but the same 

 objection applies to this arrangement, since this character is 

 an aberrant one, and not essentially bird-like, and besides 

 this, in other characters, the parrots do not approach the 

 mammals so closely as many of the other birds. 



A peculiar classification of birds, first proposed by 

 Oken, but carried out in its details by Bonaparte, is worthy 

 of our consideration. It has certainly the merit of novelty 

 and in many respects seems more natural than any of the 

 other systems. By this method of classification, birds are 

 divided into two sub-classes, according to the state in which 

 .the young are hatched from the eggs. All those birds of 

 which the young when hatched are very immature and 



ESSEX INST. PROCEED. VOL. Hi. 27. 



