ORDER PASSERES. 3 



rock; it is rudely constructed of dry branches, and the 

 female usually lays two spherical and white eggs, about the 

 size of a pigeon's egg. They feed on small wild fruits : they 

 have the habit of scratching the ground, and clapping and 

 shaking their wings like cocks and hens ; but this is the only 

 point of relation between them and the latter birds, for they 

 have neither the cry of the hen, nor the crowing of the cock : 

 they are easily tamed, and sometimes left at liberty to live 

 and run about with the poultry. 



We now come to our author's great family of Mota- 

 ciLLA, which he terms in French, " hec-fins^'' from the 

 general tenuity of the beak : they are most of them com- 

 prehended under Latham's genus of the Warblers. The 

 first division are the traquets, a word which we must 

 preserve.* 



Bechstein and Meyer term these birds saoaicola, M. 

 Vieillot, after Gesner, Willoughby, and Ray, has preserved 

 to them the denomination of csnanthe. 



They inhabit during the fine season, dry and stoney 

 places ; those, called in French, tariers, are more partial to 

 herbage, whether on the mountains or in the plains ; all 

 nestle on the ground : some in a tuft of grass, others in a 



* We may remark the very serious inconvenience to which a translator 

 of French works in natural history is subjected, by the names given to sub- 

 divisions. It is always difficult, and often impossible, to find a proper 

 English equivalent. The names of species are given to genera, and sub- 

 genera ; and, in many cases, were we to translate these names, we should 

 convey to the reader a wrong idea of the animals comprehended under the 

 section ; for, in several instances, the animal, whose specific name is thus 

 generalized, actually belongs to a division vcholly difierent. Even when 

 this is not the case, the inconvenience is far from being inconsiderable. 

 The generic name is followed by the same, specifically applied, with some 

 clumsy and circuitous appendage. It is much to be wished that naturalists 

 would agree to speak one and the same language : at present their con- 

 fusion of tongues occasions a most perplexing and vexatious Babel. For all 

 divisions, except specific ones, scientific names should alone be employed. 



E, P. 

 B 2 



