Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/720

 706 ORNITHOLOGY inburgh, 1828). De Blainville (1822) called birds pennifera, and made the 9 orders of pre- hensores (parrots), raptatores, scansores, salta- tores (passeres), sponsores (pigeons), gradatores (gallince), cursores, grallatores, and natatores. Besides this system, founded on the charac- ters of the legs and feet, he proposed another, developed by L'Herminier in 1827, based on the anatomical peculiarities of the sternum or breast bone. (See Annales de la societe lin- neenne de Paris, vol. vi.) He makes two sub- classes : I., normal birds, in which the sternum is provided with a crest, and with the three bones in the shoulder distinct and simply in contact, including 34 families of ordinary birds, from the hawks to the penguins ; II., abnormal birds, in which the sternum is formed of two pieces, originally separated, united on the median line into a single plate, of various forms, but always without bony crest or keel ; the shoulder bones, distinct in the young, are consolidated in the adult ; this includes the single family of cur so- res (ostriches). Lesson (Manuel d'ornithologie, Paris, 1828), though in his text he adopts the system of Cuvier, gives another in his intro- duction, as follows : Section I., terrestrial birds, with the orders : 1, insessores; 2, passerini; 3, rapaces ; 4, rasores ; and 5, heterosoma (ostrich- es). Section II., aquatic birds, with the orders : 6, grallatores ; 7, pinnatipedes ; 8, natatores ; and 9, paradoxaux (including the genus ornitho- rhynchus, now universally recognized as a mam- mal). Gray (" Genera of Birds," 3 vols. 4to, London, 1837-'49) makes the system of Cuvier the basis of his classification, but separates the columbce as an order from the gallince, and the strutliiones from the grallce, forming 8 orders with 49 families. The famous quinary system of classification was for many years in vogue in England, and exerted considerable influence upon ornithology by calling attention to many affinities and analogies previously overlooked. Macleay, its founder (fforce Entomologies, Lon- don, 1819-'21), assumes that all animals of a group must be analogous to those of every oth- er group, besides forming a circle in themselves ; and he therefore arrays them in circles and groups so as to bring out external analogies, without much regard to structural affinity. Vigors (" Transactions of the Linnmn Society of London," vol. xiv., 1825), following out his quincuncial and circular arrangement of affini- ties, adopts the five orders of raptor 'es, inses- rasores, grallatores, and natatores, char- acterized respectively by their feet adapted for tearing, perching, scratching, wading, and swimming. These five groups, which he ar- ranges as circles, are connected as follows : the raptores to the insessores by the owls of the former and the goatsuckers of the latter, the immediate passage being made by the Austra- lian genus podargus (Guv.) ; the pigeons are intermediate between the perching and galli- naceous birds, but belong essentially to the lat- ter, and these orders come nearest together at the insessorial plantain-eaters and the rasorial curassows; the passage from the gallinaceous birds to the waders seems to be between the bustards of the former and the genera cedicne- mus (Cuv.) and psopkia (Linn.) of the latter ; the passage from the waders to the swimmers is by the coot (fulica, Linn.) of the former and the Australian goose (cereopsis, Lath.) of the latter ; the swimmers are brought back to the raptores by the frigate bird (tachypetes, Vieill.) of the former, and probably some of the gypo- geranidce of the latter. The affinities are thus represented (op. cit., p. 509) : NJOATORES. GRALLATORES. Each of these five tribes in each of the five orders is capable of being subdivided into five families, which may be arranged in circles sim- ilarly connected. Swainson (Lardner's u Cabi- net Cyclopaedia," vol. xiii., 1837) adopts the same five orders and the general quinary ar- rangement, and expresses the analogies exist- ing between birds and mammals in the follow- ing tabular form : 1. Typical. 2. Subtypical. 8. Aquatic. 4. Suctorial. 5. Kasorial. Insessores. Raptores. Natatores. Cfrallatores. Kasores. Prehensile. Carnivorous ; retractile claws. Feeding and living in the water. Jaws much prolonged. Domestic ; feet for walking. Quadrumana. FeroK. Cetacea. GHres. Ungulata. He connects the 1st and 2d, 3d and 4th, and 4th and 5th orders by the same tribes as does Vigors ; but he is inclined to connect the 2d with the 3d by the dididce (dodo), which he places erroneously near the vultures, instead of the gypogeranidce, which he considers either the grallatorial or possibly the rasorial type of the raptores ; he connects the 5th with the 1st by the megapodidce instead of the curassows. According to the principle of these systems, birds are connected on the one hand with rep- tiles through the pterodactyl, and on the oth-