CLOSING or THE TOES. 63 



with scales, sometimes imbricated and sometimes 

 reticulated ; and there are often pads on the under 

 part of a consistency not very unlike caoutchouc, or 

 Indian rubber, and nearly as elastic and as difficult 

 to wet as that substance. 



The toes on the foot, three before and one behind, 

 may be regarded as the normal number in the order ; 

 but they are fewer in some of the running birds, and 

 more numerous in some of the other orders. The 

 toes, however, vary so much in the manner of their 

 articulation, in their size and power, and in their ap- 

 pendages, that they do not admit of general descrip- 

 tion. The toes are the portion of the foot usually 

 taken as the ground of systematic arrangement; 

 though as the principal muscles which move the toes 

 are not in the toes themselves, or even in the tarsus, 

 the whole leg w^ould be a better indication of the 

 habits of the bird ; though, being a more complicated 

 structure, an arrangement founded upon it would 

 make the elements of the system apparently a little 

 more difficult. But the difficulty would be apparent 

 and not real ; and it is very probable that, if we 

 included a little more character, and thereby gave a 

 little more meaning, to our larger divisions of the 

 several classes of animals, we would both shorten 

 and smooth the road to that accurate knowledge of the 

 individuals, which is the most valuable, and indeed the 

 only valuable, part of the whole. The other method, 

 that which takes but one portion of an organ as the 

 ground of resemblance, is simple only in proportion 

 as it teaches little, and simplest of all when it teaches 

 nothing. 



CLOSING OF THE TOES. 



; In all birds, the bending of the tibial and tarsal 



