CHARACTERS OP THE RASORIAL TYPE. 263 



portant article of food ; while the bird called by Le 

 Vail\a.nt the Importan, accompanies him in his woodland 

 rambles.* All these instincts are evident modifications 

 of one and the same principle ; and this is so strong, 

 that it is sometimes extended to the indirect repre- 

 sentations of rasorial types in other groups : hence we 

 find that the swallows, although a natatorial type, 

 always build, by preference, in the vicinity of human 

 habitations ; there being a parallel analogy between this 

 family and the rasorial parrots {PsittacidcB). Yet not 

 one of the natatorial types can he domesticated. 



(321.) That the characters of the rasorial type may 

 be rendered more apparent, we shall now bring before 

 the reader a more condensed enumeration of the chief 

 types in which they are conspicuous ; leaving him to in- 

 vestigate, through the natural history of the animals 

 themselves, the degree of analogy they respectively 

 possess. These rasorial types are arranged in columns, 

 indicating the developement of each of those rasorial 

 characters which have already been explained. To 

 those who, in a good or in a captious spirit, have ob- 

 jected, that we are perpetually talking of demonstration, 

 when not one demonstration in these volumes has yet 

 been given, we shall here, once for all, address a few 

 words. Wherever in this, or in the Preliminary Dis- 

 course, such an appeal has been made, we have referred 

 to the previous and well-known labours of Mr. Mac- 

 Leay and of others, or to our own in the work so often 

 quoted.t JVo demonstration is, or was intended to be, 

 given in that volume ; nor is there one in this, because 

 such proof depends upon analysis, and not one group of 

 animals has yet been analysed in these volumes. Results 

 of previous analysis, indeed, have been often quoted, as 

 at p. 234. When, therefore, the supposed errors of the 



• Oiscaux d'Afrique, vol. iii. p. 41. Andropadus viridis Sw., N. Zoo!. 485. 



+ Had one of our reviewers known any thing of the Fauna Boreaii- 

 Americana^ beyond the title-page, he would not have asked why constant 

 referencewas made to that volume rather than to Wilson's American Orni- 

 thology : the first containing all those demonstration; of the ornithological 

 groups to which we have appealed ; while the latter, as every one knows, 

 is a mere history of species. 



8 4 



