930 BIRDS. 
43, 3, hardly as large as a thrush, with cinereous plumage, more 
or less shaded with fawn colour; prettily variegated with little nar- 
row longitudinal black streaks, and with transverse vermicular grey 
lines; a suite of white spots on the scapulars, and six or eight 
feathers in each tuft; a beautiful little bird*. 
Certain foreign species, of large size, have the legs naked as well 
as the toes}. 
ORDER II. 
—o—. 
PASSERIN. 
Tus order is the most numerous of the whole class. Its character, at 
first, seems purely negative, for it embraces all birds which are neither 
swimmers, waders, climbers, rapacious, nor gallinaceous. By comparing 
them with each other, however, we soon perceive a great mutual simila- 
rity of structure, and particularly such insensible transitions from one 
genus to another, that it is extremely difficult to separate them into sub- 
divisions. 
They neither have the violence of the birds of prey, nor the fixed re- 
gimen of the gallinacez, nor of the water-birds; insects, fruit, and grain 
constitute their food, which consists the more exclusively of grain, in 
proportion to the largeness of their bill, and of insects, as it is the more 
slender. Those indeed which have strong bills pursue the smaller birds. 
Their stomach is a muscular gizzard. They have, generally, two very 
small ceca. Among them we find the singing birds, and the most com- 
plicated inferior larynx. 
The proportional length of their wings, and their power of flight, are 
as various as their habits. 
The adult sternum usually has but one notch on each side of its lower 
edge. There are two, however, in Coracias, Alcedo, and Merops, and it 
is totally wanting in Cypselus and Trochilus. 
Our first division is founded upon the feet; we then have recourse to 
the bill. 
The first and most numerous division comprehends those genera in 
which the external toe is united to the inner by one or two phalanges only. 
* We can find no difference between the Str. zorca of Cetti, the Str. carniolica of 
Scopoli, the Str. pulchella of Pallas, and the Scops; these gentlemen must have con- 
sidered their birds as distinct, because Linnzeus described the tuft of his as consisting 
of a single feather. Add the St. nudipéede, (Bub. nudipedes), Vieill. Amer. 22.—The 
Str. atricapilla, T. Col. 45, or Str. crucigera, Spix, [X.—The Str. noctula, T. Col. 99. 
+ The Str. ketuna, T. Col. 74, and the Str. Leschenauldi, Id. Col. 20, will be found 
at most to form but one species. 
