122 SYXDACTYLl. 



size of the bird, and it varies considerably in shape. 

 Thus in the nuthatch the bill is straight, very strong 

 for its thickness, being fortified vrith angular ridges 

 on the culmen and at the edges of the mandibles; 

 and thus it is capable of digging into the bark of trees, 

 or hewing open the shells of nuts. It is partially a 

 vegetable and partially an insect feeder. The rest of 

 the family or division have the bill of weaker struc- 

 ture, generally larger, more slender, and not so straight ; 

 and some of the humming-birds have the tip of it so 

 formed as to answer as a sucker. Thus, though the 

 bills of all may without impropriety be said to be 

 slender, yet slenderness is not a character of them, 

 neither have they any one remarkable character 

 which is common to the whole. 



The feet form a better, or, at all events, a more 

 constant character. These are all of the kind of 

 double climbing or perching feet ; and the using of 

 these as characteristic of the division, rather than 

 the mere slenderness of the bill, which, as has been 

 said, is not a very constant character, is attended 

 with some other advantages. It leads more naturally 

 not only to the following and last division of this 

 order, but to the order which Cuvier has placed 

 next in succession, and which, if we take the general 

 habits of the birds in both, has really more of what is 

 called natural affinity to this division than it has to 

 the one which Cuvier interpolates between them. 



The Syndacti/Ii form the only division of the order 

 Passeres, which Cuvier classes from the structure of 

 the toes ; but if the leading character is, as it unques- 

 tionably ought to be, taken from the most efficient 

 part of the organisation, then this is the very last family 

 of birds which should have been characterised by the 

 feet. All the division are energetic and active birds ; 



