209 



The arrangements which have been most generally adopt- 

 ed in tliis country are slight modifications of those of 

 LinnaiUK and Cuvier. Perhaps the one best known is that 

 .admitting seven orders, viz: — 



Raptores, or birds of prey, 

 Insessores, or perching birds, 

 Scansores, or climbers, 

 Rasores, or scratchers, 

 Cursores, or runners, 

 Grallatores, or waders, 

 Natatorcs, or swimmers. 



Most authors have put the birds of prey at the head of tlic 

 llist, as the highest or most perfect birds. This on many 

 accounts seems wrong, for if we examine those birds which 

 .have all the characters that are commonly considered bird- 

 like in the greatest perfection, we shall find them not 

 among the Raptores, but among the singing birds of the 

 order Insessores in the arrangement above. Some authors 

 have put the parrots highest on account of their fleshy 

 . tongues, analogous to those of mammals, but the same 

 objection applies to this arrangement, since this character is 

 ,an aberrant one, and not essentially bird-like, and besides 

 this, in other characters, the parrots do not approach the 

 mammals so closely as many of the other birds. 



A peculiar classification of birds, first proposed by 

 Oken, but carried out in its details by Bonaparte, is worthy 

 . of our consideration. It has certainly the merit of novelty 

 and in many respects seems more natural than aiiy of the 

 other systems. By this method of classification, birds are 

 , divided into two sub-classes, according to the state in which 

 the young are hatched from the eggs. All those birds of 

 „which the young when hatched are very immature and 



ESSEX INST. PROCEED. VOL. ill. 27. 



