_Orders of Birds_. _Characters_. _Tribes of Incessores_. Incessores Most perfect of their Conirostres. circle; notch of bill small Raptores Notch of bill like a Dentirostres. tooth Natatores Slightly developed Fissirostres. feet; strong flight Grallatores Small mouths; long Tenuirostres. soft bills Rasores Strong feet, short Scansores. wings; docile and domestic Some comprehensive terms are much wanted to describe these five characters, so curiously repeated throughout the whole of the animal, and probably also the vegetable kingdom. Meanwhile, Mr. Swainson calls them typical, sub-typical, natatorial, suctorial, {242} and rasorial. Some of his illustrations of the principle are exceedingly interesting. He shews that the leading animal of a typical circle usually has a combination of properties concentrated in itself, without any of these preponderating remarkably over others. The sub-typical circles, he says, “do not comprise the largest individuals in bulk, but always those which are the most powerfully armed, either for inflicting injury on their own class, for exciting terror, producing injury, or creating annoyance to man. Their dispositions are often sanguinary, since the forms most conspicuous among them live by rapine, and subsist on the blood of other animals. They are, in short, symbolically types of _evil_.” This symbolical character is most conspicuous about the centre of the series of gradations:— Kingdom Annulosa. Sub-kingdom Reptilia. Class (Mammalia) Feræ. (Aves) Raptores.