DISTRIBUTION OF EUROPEAN BIRDS. 95 
these birds in their native regions, cannot fail to have 
remarked that their flight is particularly rapid: nearly 
all the genera pass through the air with the celerity of 
a hawk. The long-winged macaws and parrakeets of 
the New World are particularly graceful and powerful 
on the wing. The wide dispersion of the European 
gallinaceous birds is very evident. The range of 
the great bustard (Otis tarda L.) extends from the 
western extremity of temperate Europe to the confines 
of Asia ; and the quail, remarkable for its heavy body 
and short wings, performs long and regular annual 
migrations, from and to Northern Africa, over the 
greatest part of Europe and Western Asia. We do 
not consider any of the European grouse as strictly 
Arctic; excepting, perhaps, the ptarmigan ; the rest 
appear to occur as plentifully beyond those regions, as 
within them. Many of the meridional European birds, 
as the hoopoe, oriole, roller, &c., might with equal jus- 
tice be classed as tropical birds, since they are found as 
often in tropical Africa as on the shores of the Medi- 
terranean. The colder countries, of course, are the 
more peculiar habitations of the grouse; but even in 
this family we meet with an insuperable objection against 
the idea of an Arctic province. If we exclude these 
birds from the fauna of temperate Europe, do we find 
the same species in the northern latitudes of America ? 
where, if we admit the existence of an Arctic province, 
it is natural to suppose they would be also found. Cer- 
tainly not. The species of the two continents represent 
each other; but out of thirteen inhabiting America, 
only two (7. saliciti and Lagopus) have been found in 
Europe: with these exceptions, they are totally distinct : 
there is a beautiful analogy, but no similarity. On 
looking to the whole number of our Gallinacea, we find 
twenty-seven species, fourteen of which have their 
metropolis in Europe: the remainder are thus dispersed : 
— five extend to Western Asia, five to the confines of 
the great African desert, two are dispersed over Central 
c 4 
