224 Natural History of the Family Cuculidce. 



Series of the Series of the Series of the Series of the Series of the 



Cuculidce. Insessores. Class Aves. Class Mammalia. Ungulata. 



Cuculinae Conirostres Insessores Quadrumana Ruminantes 



Coccyzinse Dentirostres Raptores Fene Solipedes 



Saurotherinae Fissirostres Natatores Cetacea Anaplotheres 



Tenuirostres Grallatores Glires Edentates 



Indicatorinae Scansores Rasores Ungulata Pachydermes 



It is not absolutely essential for the verification of an ornithologi- 

 cal circle that its contents should be compared with those of other 

 circles in a different class of the animal kingdom, yet where doubts 

 may be reasonably entertained on one of the types, as in the pre- 

 sent instance, it is highly expedient that the other four should un- 

 dergo a very extensive comparison, and for this reason the reader will 

 not fail to perceive that they are here submitted to a very searching 

 and severe test, — a test, in fact, which sooner or later they must 

 undergo, — or be rejected. Another reason, also, for introducing 

 them in this place, is to call the zoologist's attention to the last set 

 of analogies, or that which belongs to the Indicatores. By this we 

 find that the attachment to man, and wonderful sagacity of the honey- 

 guides, are represented by the parrot in the first column, the gal- 

 linaceous birds in the second, the ruminating animals in the third, 

 and the elephant in the fourth, each being in its own series pre- 

 eminently distinguished for social qualities. Further, I may ob- 

 serve, that this extraordinary property of the rasorial type can be 

 traced through all those groups among the Annulosa, which I have 

 as yet investigated ; but, as this would involve us in an endless field 

 of inquiry and demonstration, the subject cannot be pursued. 

 There is, nevertheless, one analogy between the Cuculidce and the 

 Annulosa, which must be touched upon ; since we should otherwise 

 leave unexplained the most remarkable peculiarity attached to this 

 family of birds : this, as before intimated, is in the parasitic nature 

 of the typical cuckoos. We search in vain for analogous examples 

 of this habit among these quadrupeds now existing, but on looking 

 to the sub-kingdom Annulosa, and investigating the two typical 

 classes of insects, (the Altera and Ptilota,) we find that the follow- 

 ing groups are all the most aberrant of their respective circles ; and 

 as this is the precise station of the cuckoos in the circle of the Scan- 

 sores, it consequently follows, that they are all mutual representa- 

 tives of each other. 



Cuculus. Vermes, (pars) Lin. — Pedicidus. Acarus. — Stylops. — 

 Cynips, L. — Chrysis, L. Nearly the whole of the insects compos- 

 ing these groups, as every entomologist knows, are eminently pa- 

 rasitic ; and, according to my researches, they actually occupy in 



