DISTRIBUTION OF EUROPEAN BIRDS. 23 



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 "W^orld 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 pecuhar 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 (T. 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 



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