THE D0VE8. 
825 
the manubrium of the breast-bone, a thing of rare occur- 
rence. 
In the tinamous of Central and South America the tail- 
feathers are in some cases entirely wanting^ and the breast- 
bone and skull-bones have some anomalous features. Most 
all gallinaceous birds have plump bodies, with short beaks 
and small rounded wings, not being good fliers. In some 
of their cranial characters they are so peculiar that Huxley 
makes them one of his primary divisions of Carinatce. 
Order 7. Columbce (Doves, etc.). — We now come to birds 
Fia. 266. -The Dodo. From Lutken's Zoology. 
of a higher type, in which the knee and part of the thigh 
are free from the body, the leg being usually feathered down 
to the tibio-tarsal joint; the toes are usually on the same 
level, being fitted for grasping or perching. 
The doves are rapid fliers, but a notable exception is seen 
in their extinct ally the Dodo {Didus inephis, Fig. 266) of 
Mauritius, which became extinct on the island of Mauritius 
in the seventeenth century, while the solitaire, Didus (Pe- 
