2 WADING BIRDS. 



traverse muddy and oozy marshes ; while others, with slen- 

 der legs, and with the toes very long, and entirely divided,* 

 swim and dive with the greatest facility. A few of the 

 Grall^e with the feet wholly or partly palmated, still do not 

 habitually swim, but seeking their nourishment over vast 

 marshy plains, washed by the sea or by rivers, they are pro- 

 vided with long legs, and their wholly, or partially webbed 

 feet serve merely to sustain them from sinking into the soft 

 and muddy soil. Other species, though they do not habitu- 

 ally swim, are nevertheless endowed with the ability, which 

 they seldom exercise, but when driven to extremities by their 

 enemies. t The voice of the whole order, of these melan- 

 choly, quailing, and shy birds, is generally harsh, loud, and 

 unmusical ; but though divested of sympathetic attraction 

 to man, they yet afford a vast supply of choice and delicate 

 food, many of them being ranked amongst the most valua- 

 ble game. They breed usually but once in the year. In 

 some genera, and often only in a few species, the moult is 

 double, and attended with a periodical change in the colors 

 of the plumage : in others the moult is annual, and then, 

 the young are several seasons in acquiring the dress of the 

 adult ; but in all there is but little external sexual difference. 



§ I. JVadei^s icith three toes. 



SANDERLINGS. (Calidris, Uliger, Temminck.) 



In these birds the bill is of moderate size, slender, straight, 

 rather soft, flexible in every part, compressed from its base, with the 

 point depressed, and so much flattened, as to be wider than the mid- 

 dle. Xasal groove elongated nearly to the point of the bill. Nos- 

 trils lateral, placed in a longitudinal clefl. Feet slender, the 3 toes 



*TheRail, Gallinule and Parra. 



t Such as some species of the genera Tringa, Totanus, Limosa, Charadrius, and 

 particularly Hcematopus. 



