202 VESTIGES OF THE 



the taste for vegetable food, and furnishes it with 

 great cunning, sagacity, and powers of imitation, even 

 to counterfeiting the human ^voice. Next come the 

 order of waders, who impart their quota to the per- 

 fection of the crow by giving it great powers of flight, 

 and perfect facility in walking, such being among the 

 chief attributes of the suctorial order. Lastly, the 

 aquatic birds contribute their portion, by giving this 

 terrestrial bird the power of feeding not only on fish, 

 which are their peculiar food, but actually of occasion- 

 ally catching it.* In this wonderful manner do we find 

 the crow partially invested with the united properties cf 

 all other birds, while in its own order, that of the in- 

 sessores or perchers, it stands the pre-eminent type. 

 We cannot also fail to regard it as a remarkable proof 

 of the superior organisation and character of the corvidre, 

 that they are adapted for all climates, and accordingly 

 found all over the world." 



Mr. Swainson's description of the zoological status of 

 the crow, written without the least design of throwing 

 any light upon that of man, evidently does so in a 

 remarkable degree. It prepares us to expect in the 

 place among the mammalia, corresponding to that of the 

 corvidie in the aves, a being or set of beings possessing a 

 remarkable concentration of qualities from all the other 

 groups of 'their order, but in general character as far 

 above the corvidic as a typical group is above an aberrant 

 one, the mammalia above the aves. Can any of the 

 simiada? pretend to such a place, narrowly and imper- 

 fectly endowed as these ci'eatures are — a humble reflec- 

 tion apparently of something higher? Assuredly not; 

 and in this consideration alone Mr. Swainson's arrange- 

 ment must fall to the ground. To fill worthily so lofty 



* See AVilson's " American Ornithology :" article, " Fishing Crow." 



