BIRD GENEALOGY 



three years selected crossings. This may be 

 looked upon as a case of reversion. 



I recently placed a half-grown domestic 

 pigeon in a wash tub of tepid water. With 

 head and neck erect the bird swam with rapid 

 alternate strokes of the feet to the side of the 

 tub. The wings were arched up and waved 

 slightly,— not stretched out and flapped in the 

 water, as in the case of the sparrow. Its posi- 

 tion was like that of a duck but low in the 

 water, which was due, no doubt, to its well- 

 filled crop and its lack of buoyant feathers. 

 Progress was much more rapid than on land, 

 where the bird stumbled awkwardly along,— 

 indeed it had never before left the nest. 



The sheathbill, Chionis by name, found in 

 the Straits of Magellan, is so ancestral and 

 generalized in its type that it suggests all the 

 groups we have just been considering. An- 

 atomically it is allied to the oyster catcher 

 and gulls. It is classed among the plovers, 

 but it is as marine in its haunts as are the 

 auks, and in flight it resembles the gulls. Its 

 appearance on land, gait and manner of court- 

 ing are very much like those of a pigeon, and 

 it goes by the name of " kelp pigeon." 

 While young terns take to the water, young 

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