OF GALLINACEOUS BIRDS AND TINAMOUS. 197 



is not a differentiated type, but that it is a basal or general form ; that it is below the 

 Fowls and even the Grouse — birds so little elevated, on the whole, above the Ostriches. 

 It also teaches that much of its divergence from the " Tetraonidas " is towards the 

 " Columbidse ;" but not entirely, for the Plover comes in for its share of affinity. But 

 the OS hyoides teaches that the Grouse, the Pigeon, and the Plover do not exhaust the 

 afl5nities of this paradoxical bird ; it also shows that, whilst the bird is related to and 

 yet below all these types, it also has within it a scarcely latent kinship to birds belonging 

 to the most fully and best developed types. 



Putting together this corvine condition of the uro-hyal in the Syrrhaptes, of the pre- 

 vomers in the Talegalla, and of the vomer in the Hemipodius, and considering that all 

 these three groups are groups of a more general and non-typical character than the 

 Fowls proper — all these things, and many more which might be mentioned, indicate 

 where the zoologist is to look for, the radical forms from which the great central 

 branches of the bird-tree have sprung. Establish that point, and then we shall find our 

 way to the syndactile and zygodactyle groups ; for we have already under our eye 

 corvine genera with no faint indications of relationship to those families. Such a bird 

 is the Piping-Crow (Gymnorhina tibicen) : the Coronica and the Vanga also both lead 

 in the same direction. All these genera are from Australia, a country rich in gene- 

 ralized forms. 



Already the writer has seen the true general or fundamental form of the " Raptores: " 

 it is the Dicholophiis , and must have a certain grallatorial nature in it ; for such men as 

 Geoffroy' and Burmeister^ have been wholly misled by its striking isomorphism with 

 the terrestrial " Grallatores." I shall willingly spend and be spent in working out the 

 details of facts of this kind ; for let us once have a thorough knowledge of what is 

 the positive truth in Nature, and then we shall be in a condition to appreciate the law 

 underlying all these orderly and closely interwoven facts. 



To return to the Syrrhaptes, we find that, whilst the skull is as exquisitely polished 

 and cellular as in the Pigeons, even the os quadratum and pterygoid being mere laby- 

 rinthic air-cells, the skeleton generally is inferior to the Pigeons in this respect, and 

 the degree of ossification is not so great. In the true Grouse, such as Lagopus, the 

 whole shape and structure of the bird is very much after the fashion of the Pigeon, 

 whilst the firm, majestic step of the typical walking-birds — the Cock, the Peacock, and 

 the Turkey — is the result of an altogether stronger skeleton, with massive hinder limbs 

 and pelvis ; but the steps are short, and the manner hurried, as in short, fat people, 

 in the Grey Partridge and the Ptarmigan. In the Syrrhaptes this is all intensified, as 

 all who have seen the living bird know. As a biped, it reminds me most of the qua- 

 drupedal Armadillo in its movements, which are so quick, and yet have a rolling feeble- 

 ness about them, whilst the large body hides the stunted legs by which it is carried. 



' Ann. d. Mus. d'H. N. xiii. p. 362. 



^ Abh. d. naturf. Gesellsch. z. Halle, vol. i. p. 1 (1853). et Syst. Ueb. d. Th. Bras. iii. p. 400. 



