Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon].

  • Robert Chambers
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vestiges of the natural history of creation / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    250/408 page 242
    é 242 MACLEAY SYSTEM OF was found to be inferior, or rather to have a less perfect balance of qualities; hence it was designated the sub-typical. In this are comprehended the chief noxious and destructive animals of the circle to which it belongs. The other three groups were called aberrant, as exhibiting a much wider depar- ture from the typical standard, although the last of the three is observed to make a certain recovery, and join on to the typical group, so as to complete the circle. The first of the aberrant groups (nata- tores) is remarkable for making the water the theatre of its existence, and the birds composing it are in general of comparatively large bulk. The second (grallatores) are long-limbed and long-billed, that they may wade and pick up their subsistence in the shallows and marshes in which they chiefly live. The third (rasores) are distinguished by strong feet, for walking or running on the ground, and for scraping in it for their food ; also by wings designed to scarcely raise them off the earth; and, further, by a general domesticity of character, and useful- ness to man. Now the most remarkable circumstance is, that these organic characters, habits, and moral pro- perties were found to be traceable more or less distinctly in the correspondiug portions of every other group, even of those belonging to distant
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