Body strong, thick-set. Head small, often with naked, brightly coloured patches, with fleshy combs or with a crest of feathers. Tip of the upper beak bends over that of the lower one. No cere (cp. Doves). Wings short, rounded; flight heavy. Feet strong. Hinder toe small and usually attached to the tarsus higher up than the front toes. Claws blunt. A small web at the bases of the toes. The male of several species bears a spur on the tarsus. Birds of this order usually keep on the ground, scraping it in search of their food, which consists of seeds, berries, the green parts of plants, insects, worms, and snails. Young precocious (p. 51). Several domestic birds belong to the Rasores: pheasants, the various races of fowls, pea-fowls, guinea-fowls, turkeys. The species living wild in Britain are game-birds. They are—the =Capercailzie= (_Tetrao urogallus_, Fig. 40), =Black Game= (_T. tetrix_), =Partridge= (_Perdix cinerea_), =Quail= (_P. coturnix_); none of them are particularly harmful or useful to agriculture. The =Pheasant= (_Phasianus colchicus_, Fig. 41) was originally a native of the Caucasus, and shores of the Caspian Sea and Sea of Aral; it occurs wild in Central Europe. Pheasants are troublesome to the farmer, both by devouring the newly sown seed and by scratching up the fields. [Illustration: FIG. 40.—Male and Female Capercailzie (_Tetrao urogallus_). ] ORDER: =Grallatores= (WADING-BIRDS). The species here included differ very much among themselves; but all seek their food, which is almost exclusively of animal nature, at the water-edge (rivers, brooks, lakes, ditches, canals, seashore) or in damp places (damp meadows and ploughed fields, moors, swamps). They are, therefore, adapted to wading, and for this purpose have a long featherless tarsus, while the lower half of the long shank is quite bare and covered with horny scales. In flight the wading-birds do not draw their legs up to their body, as is the case with the birds already spoken of, but stretch them out behind to their full length. Monogamous. Young precocious (p. 51), except in storks and herons when they are nestlings. The shore-dwellers eat fish, bivalve molluscs, etc.; only those species living on damp meadows and fields are of use to agriculturists, by devouring insects, snails, and worms. These are indicated by the letter u in the following list of the commonest native kinds:— [Illustration: FIG. 41.—The Pheasant (_Phasianus colchicus_). ] =Coot= (_Fulica atra_); =Water Hen= (_Gallinula chloropus_); =Corn Crake= (_Crex pratensis_, u); =Plovers= (_Charadrius_, u); =Pewit= or =Lapwing= (_Vanellus cristatus_, u); the =Snipes= (_Scolopax_); the =Curlews= (_Numenius_, u); the =Stints= (_Tringa_); the =Godwit= (_Limosa ægocephala_, u); the =Sandpipers= (_Totanus_, u); the =Heron= (_Ardea cinerea_). [Illustration: FIG. 42.—The Woodcock (_Scolopax rusticola_). ] ORDER: =Natatores= (SWIMMING-BIRDS).