﻿292 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



first pursued. Here, then, is that great superiority of 

 grasping, though manifested in a different way, which 

 we find in the typical perchers and the four-handed 

 quadrupeds : for this perfection, which belongs to some 

 of the most perfect falcons, must be, without doubt, 

 a typical characteristic ; the more so, as there is no 

 evidence to show that it is possessed by any birds of the 

 other divisions of the family. This fact so materially 

 strengthens the other evidences in favour of the genus 

 Falco being the representative of the conirostral birds, 

 that we may consider the analogy as established : it 

 consequently follows that the hawks represent the Den- 

 tirostres, because the succession of affinity in their own 

 circles of these groups with those two we have just 

 compared have long ago been established. In other 

 words, no one can doubt that the hawks do not follow 

 the falcons, or that the Dentirostres do not follow the 

 Conirostres. Yet it must be confessed, — if these facts 

 were not established, so little do we know of the habits 

 and instincts of the greater proportion of the Faleonidce, 

 — that this analogy would not, at first, appear so perfect 

 as the last. It deserves attention, however, that, as the 

 shrikes (which stand at the head of the Dentirostres) 

 have the largest tooth among the Insessores, so is the 

 tooth or festoon of the hawks 

 {fig. 95. a) much larger than 

 that of the falcons (b), although 

 not so formidable in its use. , 

 All the typical shrikes, that 

 is, the Laniadce and the 

 Thamnophelince, have rounded 

 wings like the hawks; and the 

 prevalent colours, both in Ac- 

 cipiter and Lanius, are grey, 

 transversely banded beneath 

 with narrow lines : these lat- 

 ter, in the Laniadce, disappear- 

 ing w T ith age. The Dentirostres is obviously the subtypi- 

 cal group of the perchers; and the hawks are as obviously 



