calzie and quails, and, lastly,
the megapodius or bush-turkey of Australia. This last is the only bird
which hatches its eggs by artificial heat, depositing them in a mound of
earth and decaying vegetable matter, wherein they are hatched
fully-fledged, so that they can fly away immediately on leaving the egg.
All the birds yet mentioned are called gallinaceous birds, or _Gallinae_,
and sometimes _Rasores_ or "Scratchers."

More or less allied to them are the doves and pigeons, which form the
order _Columbae_, in which the curious ground-pigeon _Didunculus_ is
included--a form which presents an interesting resemblance to the
celebrated and extinct dodo of Mauritius, long known only by certain
pictures, and a foot and head preserved, one in the British Museum, and
the other in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford.

Our sparrows, robins, and all our song birds are members of an
exceedingly numerous "order" "_Paseres_." In it are included the crows
(with those gaily-decorated crows, the Birds of Paradise, found only in
New Guinea and the Moluccas), the bower birds and the lyre bird of
Australia; the flycatchers, the pittas (or ground thrushes), the
water-ouzel, the weaver birds, the wrens, the tits, the creepers, the
honey-eaters, those African gems, the sun birds, and also the swallows.

To another order--the order _Macrochires_--belong those most beautiful
of all birds, the humming birds, found only in America, and long thought
to be allied with the really very different sun birds just mentioned.
With these may be associated the swifts (which have such marvellous
powers of flight) and the wide-gaped goat-suckers or nightjars.

Woodpeckers are considered to form an order (_Pici_) by themselves,
while the cuckoos are thought to be near relations of the beautiful and
eccentric toncans, the plaintain-eaters, the touracous, the kingfishers,
the hoopoes, the bee-eaters, the hornbills, and the trogons, all, from
the cuckoos to the trogons, being included in the order _Coccyges_.

The parrots form an isolated group of birds--the order _Psittaci_. Their
most peculiar forms are the macaws on the one hand, and the brush-tailed
loris on the other. The order _Accipitres_ includes all the birds of
prey--that is to say, the eagles, falcons, hawks, buzzards, vultures,
and owls. In this order is included the long-legged secretary bird,
which looks like a cross between a hawk and heron.

Pelicans, gannets, cormorants (or shags), and darters