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第6章 捍卫婚姻

The New Holland bird has the head and upper part of the neck thinly covered with slender black feathers; the space around the ears alone being left bare, and exhibiting, as well as the neck and throat, which are but partially concealed by the scattered plumage with which they are provided, the blue tinge of the skin. The general colour of the plumage is grayish brown above, with a more plentiful intermixture of the gray and a consequent lighter tinge beneath. The young are striped longitudinally with brown and gray. Their bill is black, and their legs are remarkably thick and of a dull brown. The great length of the latter and of the neck, and the erect attitude and quiet demeanour of these birds, which sometimes attain as much as seven feet in height, give them altogether a noble and imposing appearance. They were formerly common in the neighbourhood of Botany Bay, subsisting, like the rest of their tribe, upon vegetable substances, chiefly fruits. They are extremely wild, and run with great swiftness when p

cerating teeth, and their rough and rasplike tongue, are supplied by a broad and lengthened snout, teeth of a character totally different in almost every essential point, and a soft, smooth, and extensible tongue. The claws too, which in the cats are strongly curved, exceedingly sharp at their edges, tapering gradually to a fine point, and capable of being entirely retracted within their sheaths, are here indeed of great power, and sometimes even considerably arched, but rounded in their surfaces, more or less blunted at their extremities, and constantly protruded to their full extent. In this manner might the contrast be pursued through almost every organ; but our limits warn us that we must at once proceed to the enumeration of the essential characters which combine the Bears into a well marked group.

From the strongly marked group, to the illustration of various species of which the foregoing pages have been dedicated, we pass by a natural and easy transition to an animal, which, although closely resembling them in its zoological characters, and in the cowardly ferocity of its disposition, bears nevertheless a stronger affinity to the dogs, with which it was associated by Linn?us. From each of these groups it is, however, readily distinguished by several obvious and essential characters, of sufficient importance to sanction its separation as a genus, now universally adopted among naturalists.

s founded, has little to do with the question; and it would surely require no great subtilty of argument to prove that the Carnivora are more highly typical of the great class, of which they form so important a part, than any other tribe whatever. But this is not the proper place for entering into so abstract a question; to which we have only referred en passant, for the sake of justifying ourselves upon broader principles for a deviation from established custom, which we should not have hesitated to adopt, in the present instance, on the narrow ground of expedience alone. Before, however, we take leave of it altogether, we cannot avoid asking, why, if the Monkeys are to take precedence of the Carnivora among Mammalia, the analogous tribe of Birds, the Pies and the Parrots, should not also rank above the ornithological representatives of the beasts of prey, the towering Eagle and the rapacious Vulture?

Both in outward shape and internal characters, these clumsy, sluggish, and uncouth animals offer a perfect contrast to the light, active, and elegant forms of the[116] tribe with which we commenced our series. Instead of the compressed and lengthened body, with its soft, sleek, and variegated covering, and the long and graceful tail by which it is terminated, we have a broad, awkward, and thickset figure, covered with a rough, shaggy, and unattractive fur, and ending in a scarcely visible appendage, serving neither for ornament nor use. The difference in gait and motion is as remarkable as that of shape; for while the one glides gently along, as it were on tiptoe, or bounds onwards with the velocity of thought, the other appears to be oppressed by the weight of his ponderous and unwieldy bulk, and supporting himself on the full expansion of his dilated paws, scarcely moves without the semblance of an effort. The short and rounded jaws of the cats, with their close and regular series of powerful cutting and la

To commence then with the Eagles, which form a prominent group of the Rapacious Order, and are universally regarded as the most majestic, as well as the most powerful, of birds. In common with the whole[200] Order, they are remarkable for the strong incurvation of their bill and talons, the latter of which are four in number on each of the feet, and are moved by means of a thick and strong muscular apparatus, which gives to the grasp of the larger species that extreme tenacity by which they are distinguished, enabling them to seize and carry off fish and birds, and even quadrupeds of moderate size. This innate propensity to rapine, derived from their peculiar conformation which renders them essentially flesh-eaters, indicates at once the analogical relationship borne by the Rapacious Birds to the Carnivorous Quadrupeds; and the high degree to which it is carried by the Eagles, their vast powers of flight, their towering majesty, their irresistible might, their uniform preference of living victims and rejectio

of animal substances.

THE HY?NA-DOG.

The Cockatoos have a strong, broad, and well curved beak; their eyes are surrounded by a naked space; their tail is short, square, and equal at the end; and their head is furnished with a remarkable crest of long and slender feathers, which may be raised or depressed at will, and are frequently of a different colour from the rest of the plumage. This latter character forms the most distinguishing mark of the group, which is partly indigenous to India and the Indian Islands, and partly to Australia. They are fond of damp and marshy situations, and usually inhabit the neighbourhood of rivers or of smaller streams, in which they indulge themselves[220] with frequent bathing, a practice in which, even in captivity, they seem, in common with many others of the tribe, to take a particular pleasure. Like the rest of the Parrots they live entirely on vegetable substances, and chiefly upon seeds; some of them, however, are said to feed upon roots. Their usual nourishment, in a domesticated state, is the same with that