64 Elementary Manual of Zoology. 
Loranthacew ; (6) as the destroyers of seeds, fruit and insect; (c) as 
game; and (d) as sought after for plumage. 
Birds are classified as Saurura, Rattte, and Carinate. The Saurure 
comprise the fossil species Archeopteryx, which differed from all otber 
birds in the great relative length of the tail region of the spine and in the 
imperfect specialisation of the fore-limbs. The Ratite comprise such hirds 
as the the ostrich of Africa, the rhea of America, the emu of Australia, 
and the cassuary of New Guinea. They are incapable of flight, and have 
no ridge to the breast-bone for the attachment of the wing muscles. The 
Carinate comprise the remaining birds, including all the species that 
oceur in India. They are characterised by the possession of a ridge to the 
breastbone for the attachment of the wing muscles. 
The Carinata comprise an enormous assemblage of species, which are 
most difficult to classify on account of the great number of intermediate 
forms between the different groups. The chief features that are usually 
taken for classificating purposes are the nature and arrangement of the 
hones in the roof of the mouth! and the arrangement of the tendons? by 
which the toes are flexed. These features, however, are not only some- 
what obscure, but the conclusions to be deduced from them are so inde- 
finite that hardly any two writers upon the subject have hitherto adopted 
precisely the same classification. In his Birds of Burma Mr. Oates, who 
is the author of the first half of the work upon the Birds in the Fauna 
of British India, classities the Carinate into the groups Passeres, 
Maerochires, Pici, Coecyges, Psittaci, Striges Accipitres, Steganopodes, 
Herodiones, Anseres, Columba, Gallina, Geranomorphe, Limicole, 
Gavie, Turbivares, and Pygopodes. This arrangement is somewhat 
artificial, and the characters upon which it is based are too complicated 
for the students to attempt to master, but itis about the most convenient 
that is at present available, so may be adopted provisionally, The Tur- 
binares (diving petrels) and the Pygopodes (grebes) may be passed over 
as of no practical importance to the forester. 
I.—Passeres (Perching birds),—This group comprises an enormous 
gathering of species, of which the house-crow and the 
sparrow may be taken as typical examples. The students 
should go over the named collection of birds in the School 
Museum and learn to recognise at least the house and 
jungle crows, tree-pies, bulbuls, mynas, and sparrows, 
which feed upon a mixed, diet, and the king-ciows, wag- 
tails, babblers and swallows, which are insectivorous. A 
sketch of the head and beak, with a note on the size of 
the bird and the colours of its feathers, will usually be 
° 
1 Especially the vcmer and the maxillopallatine bones, also the nasal and frontal bones. 
2 ‘the flewor perforans digitorum and the flaeor longus hallucis. 
