GALLINACHOUS BIRDS. 547 
rubbish, forming a hot-bed, in which its eggs are left to 
hatch. The megapods, together with the Americaa guans 
and curassows (Cracide@), form a sort of passage from the 
gallinaceous to the columbine birds. One of the most puz- 
zling forms for the systematic ornithologist to deal with is 
the hoasin of Guiana (Onisthocomus cristatus Mliger). In 
this bird the keel of the breast-bone is 
cut away in front, the wish-bone unites 
with the coracoid bones, and also with 
the manubrium of the breast-bone. It 
was an archaic gallinaceous bird.* 
In the tinamous of Central and South 
America the tail-feathers are, in some 
cases, entirely wanting, and the breast- 
bone and skull-bones have some anom- 
alous features. Most all gallinaceous 
birds have plump 
bodies, with short 
beaks and small 
rounded wings, not 
being good fliers. 
In some of their 
cranial characters 
they are so peculiar 
that Huxley makes = 
them one of his 
primary divisions 
of Carinate. 
We now come to 
birds of a higher 
ig. 472.—White-tailed Ptarmigan (Lagopus leucurus), 
type, in which the in eee figure) summer and (ower figure) winter 
Knee and par t of plumage.—From Hayden’s Survey. 
the thigh are free from the body, the leg being usually 
feathered down to the tibio-tarsal joint ; the toes are usually 
on the same level, being fitted for grasping or perching. 
The doves are rapid flicrs, but a notable exception is seen 
in their extinct ally the Dodo (Didus ineptus Linn.) of 
Mauritius, which became extinct on theisland of Mauritius 
in the seventeenth century, while the solitaire, Didus (Pe- 
* The young have wings with two claws, a third rudimentary claw, 
and two rudiments of a fourth digit; its scapula is batrachian, its 
three clavicles lizard-like (Parker), see Fig 4710. 
