CHAPTER IV. 



SORTATION. 



WHAT is the name of the bird we have brought in with us fron. 

 our walk ? Probably it has many names, both local and 

 technical ; but its local name is useless to us, to begin with, for such 

 names are not systematic, and give no clue to classification. What 

 we have to do, then, is to identify the bird, to discover the species 

 under which it has been described, and in that way arrive at the plain 

 English name by which it is generally known in our district. 



Now, individuals are grouped by naturalists into species, species 

 into genera, genera into families, families into orders, and orders into 

 a class or classes. In this case we do not know the species, but we 

 know the class. Here is unmistakably one of the class Aves, or birds ; 

 and that is all we can say about it in the present stage of our progress 

 from the general to the particular. 



The Aves consist of certain orders, but these it will be convenient 

 to leave for a while. These orders are made up of families, and as 

 there are only 35 families in the scheme we have adopted, we can at 

 once begin to sort them out by using whatever characteristic is readiest 

 and handiest for identification, even though it may only hold good for 

 such of their representatives as are found in our list. 

 To begin with, there is one well-defined group of birds which are 

 easily distinguishable. These are the so- 

 called " Birds of Prey," the Aetomorpha of 

 Huxley, the Raptores of the older classifi- 

 cations. There is no mistaking the long, 

 strong, cruel claws, and the sharp-curving 

 bill of such birds as these ; and, for the 

 purposes of identification, though not for 

 classification — which is a very different 

 thing — it will be found as simple a way as 

 any to work on two main divisions, the first 

 including the birds of prey, and the second 

 all the rest. Retaining, then, the old name 

 of Raptores, which has the advantage of 

 being familiar, we have : — 



1. Raptores. 



2. Non-Raptores. 



It fortunately happens that the first is represented by only three 

 famihes in the British list. These are : — 



1. The Owls. 



2. The Vultures. 



3. The Eagles, Hawks, Falcons, &c., &c. 



or, to use the technical names, the Strigidce, Vulturida, and Falconidce. 



