Fig. 20. Synbactylous Foot of 



COMPARING FEET. 97 



been guessed. We can see, however, that the kingfishers use 

 their feet only in clasping small perches, and that parts 

 so little exercised would naturally be small and weak as we 

 find these. Instead of learning the hard names for these 

 forms of feet, it may be better to tell you that dactyl comes 

 from an old Greek word for a 

 finger or toe, and that any 

 word of which it forms a park 

 always tells you something of 

 fingers or toes. Syndactylous Kingfisher (Life Size). 



means "with toes joined together"; zygodactylous means 

 " yoke-toed " ; now what does pterodactyl mean ? Look it up, 

 and you will have mastered another word from the Greek, which 

 is often used in science, as in apteryx and in other compounds. 

 We must not forget to notice the differences in birds' claws. 

 Here, too, are all sorts of variations, hinting something of the 

 bird's ways of living. Do not a hen's short, stubby nails look 

 like those of a hand that has scratched in the ground ? The 

 crooked claws of the hawk and owl, sharp and shining, 

 indicate a very different mode of living. Birds of prey 

 keep their claws in scrupulously neat condition, never pressing 

 them against any hard perch 



but lifting them as a cat lifts .^^^^^^^ ' ' ^^^j*^ 

 her claws, or turning them to 

 one side that they may not be 

 blunted. Whenever we see a 

 bird with extremely long nails 

 on the hind toes, like the long- Fig. 27. Foot of Longspdr (Life 

 spurs, the skylarks, the horned Size). 



larks, and the meadow lark, we may be sure that the bird 

 frequents the ground. Probably he will be found to be strictly 

 terrestrial. 



