Specific Clavacters. — Featliei’s of vertex elongated; tail round, 
■with a black fascia tipped witli grey on all the lateral feathers; 
inferior parts of the tarsi and the toes naked; tliroat black in the 
male, yellow in female. Length thirteen inches and a half; from 
carpal joint to tip of wing six inches and a half; tail six inches; 
tarsi one inch; beak nine lines. 
According to modern views of classification we have 
now arrived at the second great division of the class 
Aces. The first division comprises all those birds, the 
young of which require attention in the nest from 
their parents, before they arrive at maturity in wing 
and limb. Hence they are called Heterophagi — those 
the young of which cannot feed themselves. We have 
gone through this sub-class, and have arrived at the 
second, or Autophagi — those the young of which can 
more or less feed themselves from birth. The former 
sub-class comprises the Raptores, Passeres, Scay^sores, 
and ColumhidcB ; the latter the Rasores, Cur sores, 
Grallatores, and Natatores. 
Although this work treats of only a section of the 
birds in one quarter of the globe, and though I have 
adopted as the simplest, and what I consider (with 
all its faults) the best of modern classifications — that 
of Tcmminck — I still do not consider myself jirecluded 
from noticing, from time to time, what I may think 
as worthy of observation on the great and important 
subject of scientific arrangement. 
The division to which I have alluded makes but 
little break in Temminck’s arrangement. It merely 
excludes the Columhidee from the second sub-class, and 
places them in the first. The arrangement is, 1 think, a 
good one. It is founded on a great natural division 
in the plan of development in birds, and which is 
