GRALLATORES. 



OllDER V. — WADING BIRDS. 



— ^~S5ST?'-=Sv^^ — ^- " ■ r-'' 



"The habits and manners of birds," says BiifFon, "are not so free as might be sup- 

 posed ; their conduct is not the result of a freedom of will or choice, but a necessary 

 effect derived from the conformation, the organisation, and the exercise of their physical 

 faculties. Determined and fixed, each in the manner of life which this necessity imposes, 

 none attempt to infringe it, and none can withdraw themselves from its influence. It is 

 by this necessitj', as varied as is the structure of animated bodies, that all the districts of 

 Nature arc peopled. The eagle quits not the rock, nor the heron the shore ; the one 

 drops from his airy lieight to carry off or tear the lamb, by no right but that of power, 

 and by no means but those of violence ; the other, with his feet sunk in mire, awaits, at 

 the command of necessity, the passage of his fugitive prey. The woodpecker never 

 abandons the trunks of trees, round which he is ordained to creep. The snijae must 

 remain in his marshes ; the lark in his furrows ; the singing-birds in their groves. Do 

 we not obsor\c all granivorous birds search out inhabited countries, and follow the track 

 of cultivation ; while, on the contrary, those which prefer berries and wild fruits 

 invariably shun the footsteps of man, and in the dense wood, or on the solitary mountain- 

 steep, bide alone with Nature, which has dictated the laws they shall obey, and furnished 

 them with the means of sucli obedience r She it i» who retains the wood-hen beneath 

 the thick foliage of the fir-tree ; the solitary blackbird (turdm cyanem) in tlir ruck ; tlie 

 lorict in the forest, that rc^-ecliocs to his cries ; while the bustard liaunls the diy fallow 

 land, and the rail the liumid meadow. The.se are the eternal, immutable decrees of Nature, 

 as permanent as the forms of her productions. These are her grand and rightful pro- 

 perties, whieh she never vields nor aliandons, even in things which we iniiigine we liiive 



