2 GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 



prolific than in any previous tribe. They are often social, in 

 some groups even gregarious ; they do not wash, but roll 

 themselves in the dust, and almost all nestle on the ground. The 

 young of all are born covered with down, and run as soon as 

 hatched. They are more or less capable of domestication, and 

 all afford an excellent and wholesome food for man. 



The head is smaller than in the birds of the preceding orders, 

 and the neck longer ; the wings are generally rounded and feeble, 

 the sternum from its large notches affording but little space for 

 the attachment of the pectoral muscles which, however, are well 

 developed, giving the bird a plump appearance ; and the flight, 

 though not capable of being continued, is yet tolerably rapid and 

 powerful, though labored, for a short distance. The bill in most is 

 thick, short, and convex, slender in two of the families. The tail 

 is short and even in some, rounded in others, forked in several, 

 and lengthened and graduated in a few. 



The skull of most Rasores is narrow, but slightly raised, and 

 without ridges, and the bony orbit is incomplete. The cervical 

 vertebrae are of greater number than in any of the preceding 

 orders, varying from 13 to 15. The sternum has a double bifur- 

 cation on each side, and the fissures are so wide and deep as to 

 give to the lateral parts of the bone the appearance of a bifur- 

 cated process. The median fissure is the deepest ; the keel is short, 

 shallow, and nearly straight ; the furcula is anchylosed, and, as in 

 most of the previous groups, is joined to the sternum below by 

 ligaments. The tarsal spur, present in many Gallinaceous birds, and 

 represented by a knob in others, is considered to be the representa- 

 tive of the thumb, and is present in no other order but in this. 



The dilatation of the oesophagus, called the crop, is large but 

 single ; the gastric glands are complex, and form a complete circle ; 

 the gizzard is extremely strong, the internal coat being thick and 

 hard ; and as the birds of this order swallow small stones, gravel, 

 &c, to assist in the trituration of the food, two callous buttons 

 are formed in the gizzard by the constant pressure and friction. 

 The coeca are, in general, highly developed in Gallinaceous birds; 

 small comparatively in the more aberrant families, enormous in 

 some, especially in the Grouse tribe. The gall bladder is 



