Feet and Legs 367 



the race as a whole they are forgotten, but it is well for 

 us to think of them occasionally: their birth, the chance 

 which came, which seemed so full of promise, which they 

 so eagerly accepted and which betrayed them; the myriad 

 little dead forms which gave up their lives in ages past, 

 and upon whose bodies and whose efforts the birds of 

 to-day have risen to their present high place in the scale 

 of the creatures of the world. 



We might have used this same illustration, or many 

 others like it, in connection with almost any other portion 

 of the bird's body. Although, indeed, it pertains more 

 strictly to the mental characters, and so is in a way out- 

 side the province of this volum.e, yet its application to 

 physical adaptations is so evident that its omission would 

 leave incomplete a most interesting phase of the possi- 

 bilities of the adaptation of bird structure. 



Although among perching birds the bill is the important 

 organ for procuring food, yet such birds as the Chewink, 

 the White-throated Sparrow, and the jays, in search of 

 small insects use their feet to scratch awa}^ dead leaves 

 and rubbish, kicking backward with both feet at once. 



There are many curious things about toes to which 

 we have not yet found the ke}-. Who can tell why the 

 Horned Lark, Pipit, and some other birds have such 

 elongated claws on their rear toes? Perhaps the fact 

 that these birds live almost entirely on the ground may 

 have something to do with this peculiarit3\ Any one who 

 has kept a cage full of small birds will soon have learned 

 the fact that the claws of birds are continually growing. 

 In a remarkably short tim.e their claws become long and 



