NATATORES. DIVISIONS. 
185 
rather singular that these auks are often called sea- 
parrots : this analogy, indeed, has been remarked 
before ; but without any suspicion, as it would seem, 
that both of these families were dentirostral types. 
We now come to die aberrant families, in which a 
most singular commixture of characters is to be 
found. It has, as we conceive, been abundantly 
proved, that the first, or rather the most prevalent, of 
all the characters assigned to the rasorial type of 
nature, is a marked instinct for domestication. If we 
follow up this theory for the purpose of deciding which 
of the remaining three is the rasorial family of the 
natatorial order, we must at once fix upon the 
Anatida, or ducks ; for, while nearly one half of the 
species in this group have been domesticated, time out 
of mind, in all countries, and by all civilised nations, 
there is not a single species among the two remaining 
families, the pelicans and the gulls, of which the same 
can be truly affirmed,— both, in fact, are peculiarly wild 
and untameable, Hving, for the most part, on the ocean, 
and only frequenting the land for the purpose of 
breeding, or to perch and fish from a rock. Having 
now made out, in some measure, the analogies of three 
of the families, there remain two others, the Peli. 
canidtB and the Larida, and we are to determine 
which of these is the most aberrant ; in other words, 
which has the least developement of the natatorial 
characters. By putting the question in this shape, we 
are immediately led to fix upon the gulls, from their 
having the longest legs of all the Natatores, and also 
from their habits being the most terrestrial ; they are, 
in point of fact, the waders of the swimming order, as 
every one knows who has seen them walking on the 
shore, intermixed with their prototypes, tlie true Gral- 
latores. If this theory be correct, — and it seems well 
borne out by the facts of the case, — it inevitably follows 
that the Pelicatiidai are analogous to the only remaining 
type, that is, the fissirostral or natatorial : this is 
not only the theoretical conclusion we sliould arrive at 
