GALLINACEOUS BIRDS 
Galline. 
Among the gallinaceous birds, also called Gallineg— 
cock family—and formerly Rasores, scratchers—are to 
be found by far the most numerous and economically 
the most important of the upland game birds. The 
group includes the turkeys, guinea fowl, pheasants, 
grouse, partridges, quail and some other groups, wild 
and domesticated, which are especially used for food. 
On the one hand it is allied to the pigeons, and on the 
other to the cranes, and through them to the limicoline 
birds, which include the snipe, woodcock, plover and so 
on. The great systematist, Huxley, divided the galli- 
naceous birds into two groups, one of which he called 
‘Alecteropodes, or fowl-footed, in which the hind toe is 
small, and elevated above the others—as, for example, 
in the domestic hen, the turkey and the grouse—while 
to the other division he gave the name Peristeropodes, 
or pigeon-footed, in which the hind toe is well devel- 
oped and long, and all four toes are in the same plane 
and rest equally upon a flat surface in walking—as the 
pigeons, currassows and others. 
The English naturalists consider all the gallinaceous 
game birds which we know here in northern North 
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