Transactions of the Zoological Society of London Volume 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1866 Excerpt: ...lower jaw: the upper grooves lead backwards into the nostrils. This is so exactly like what is seen in the Ostriches, that the ensheathed part has only to be produced into a longer beak, and the face of the Apteryx is seen at once. There are certain curious, thoroughly marine Plovers (Chionis), in which the sheathing of the upper jaw is very perfect; they thus retain a struthious character, but have it in an exaggerated condition. There is a somewhat faint condition of this in the Albatroses (Diomedea exulans and others), but it is more perfectly developed in the Petrels (e. g. Procellaria glacialis). In the Petrels the strong and highly arcuate "neb" is marked off from the sides by a deep groove, as in the "Struthionidae." The breaking-out again, as it were, of these characters in the pluvialine and larine oceanic birds does not at all affect their value as indicating the affinities of the Tinamou; for many very high and noble birds amongst the typical groups betray, by their dress, gait, speech, and behaviour, a certain kinship to the low, soil-stained Ostriches--just as a Horse, with much good blood in him, may unfortunately possess the back-stripe which brands him as germane to the Ass. The plumage of the Tinamou comes very near to that of the subtypical " Gallinae;" but in wisdom the bird is very far inferior to the Grouse and Partridge; and the easy manner in which it is caught with the "lasso" shows that it has no right to sit in the same zoological seat as the running "Gallinaceae." As far as posture is concerned, they often assume that peculiar mode of sitting upright which the Ostriches so frequently adopt, and which is imitated also by some of the great clownish "Grallae" of higher types...