346 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
by the author in 18S6 in his memoir in Todd’s Cyclopsedia. In some orders 
of birds the newly-hatched young are able to run about and provide for them- 
selves the moment they leave the shell ; while in others they are excluded 
naked, feeble, and blind, and have to depend on their parents for succour. 
The orders of the first series are proposed to be styled Aves prcecoces, and those 
of the second, Aves altrices. There is not much to be said concerning the nomen- 
clature of the several orders. The old order Insessores has been split into two 
sections, — the Cantores, or singing birds, and the Yolitores, or those which 
move solely by flight : the first includes the shrike, wren, wagtail, warbler, 
thrush (Dentirostres) ; the Paradise bird, crow, starling, bunting, tit, lark, finch, 
grosbeak (Conirostres) ; the sun-bird, nuthatch, creeper (Tenuirostres), and the 
swallow and martin (Fissirostres). The second embraces the swift, humming- 
bird, nightjar, trogon, motmot, bee-eater, jacamar, roller, puff-bird, kingfisher, 
and hornbill. The other orders are those usually recognized, and contain the 
families generally allotted to them. We, however, observe one alteration, 
which shows a change of opinion on the part of our author ; the dodo is no 
longer ranked by him among the raptorial birds. The views of Melville and 
Strickland have at last been adopted, and the strange bird of the Mauritius, 
which was successfully extinguished by the Dutch sailors, is now stated by 
Professor Owen to be “ most nearly allied to the Columbaceous group of 
Basores.” 
Passing from the consideration of our author’s mode of dealing with the 
class in detail, we come to offer a few remarks upowhis sketch of the division 
Aves, as a great natural group of the organic world. It is here he shows his 
peculiar powers. There is a broadness of thought, a vividness of description, 
and a keen perception of important zoological characters, in the following 
general survey of birds : — 
“ Birds form the best-characterized, most distinct, and natural class in the 
whole animal kingdom, perhaps even in organic nature. They present a con- 
stancy in their mode of generation, and in their tegumentary covering, 
which is not to be met with in any other of the vertebrate classes. No species 
of bird ever deviates, like the whales among mammals, the serpents among 
reptiles, and the eels among fishes, from the tetrapodous type characterizing 
the vertebrate division of animals. The anterior extremities are constructed 
according to that plan which best adapts them for the action of flight ; and 
although in some instances the development of the wings proceeds not so far 
as to enable them to act on the surrounding atmosphere with sufficient power 
to overcome the counteracting force of gravity ; yet in these cases they assist 
by analogous motions the posterior extremities ; either, as in the ostrich, by 
beating the air, while the body is carried swiftly forward by the action of the 
powerful legs ; or, as in the penguin, by striking the water after the manner 
of fins, and by the resistance of the denser medium carrying the body through 
the water in a manner analogous to that by which the birds of flight are borne 
through the air. In a few exceptions, as in the cassowary and the apteryx, the 
wings are outwardly represented by a few quills or a small claw. In no 
instances do the anterior extremities take any share in stationary support 
or in prehension. . . . Birds in general are associated together by characters 
so peculiar, definite, and unvarying, it becomes in consequence more difficult 
to separate them into subordinate groups, and these are naturally more arbi- 
trary and artificial than those of the other vertebrate classes.” 
The plan of the present volume is similar to that of the preceding one. 
