CHARACTERISTIC BIRDS. 
185 
animal. It is of the greatest service to the poor inhabi¬ 
tants of those dreary fregions, who in a great measure 
remain true to their home on its account. Lastly, we 
cannot surrender the Great Auk (Alca impennis), though, 
if at all, it is more likely to be found now in Northern 
America than in Europe, where (as we have already 
remarked) it may possibly never be seen again. 
Asia, that vast and teeming quarter of the globe, stamps 
her birds with an impress more peculiarly her own. We 
may venture to assume that the vast and hitherto un¬ 
explored tracts of this country have a surface more than 
twice the area of all Europe; at the same time many 
families of birds are known which belong exclusively to 
this continent. It is scarcely possible to determine how 
many species of other and more widely extended families 
may probably belong to it alone. That the white man, 
as well as the plants he uses as food and almost all his 
domestic animals, were brought originally from Asia, is 
an assumption confirmed by observation at the very 
outset. What Nature could offer to man, he found in 
his first home—the land which cradled humanity. Those 
birds which are peculiarly characteristic of Asia are the 
very birds we have domesticated and value most. At all 
events the Guinea-fowl, Turkey, Pigeon, Duck, Goose, 
and birds which came from other parts of the earth, were 
tamed much more recently. The Caucasian, whose birth¬ 
place is assumed to have been Asia, as he spread over 
other quarters of the globe, took with him from Asia 
those birds best suited to his wants. Hence we may 
without injustice accord the first place to them in our 
treatise. 
History and tradition are both silent as to the date at 
which man first caught Wild-fowl with the object of 
