April 



are chiefly shore-birds, commonly found on the 

 borders of the ocean, lake, bog, or stream, or 

 wading in the shallows where they find the ani- 

 mal food on which they chiefly subsist, and 

 which they are so evidently adapted to procure, 

 by their long bills and necks, slender bodies, 

 and long legs. The most beautiful of water- 

 fowl are in this class, such as the cranes, storks, 

 and herons of the Northern States, and the 

 gorgeous flamingoes of Florida, all of these 

 about four feet in length and several feet high. 



The *' swimmers" are of a different type, 

 being generally thick-set, short-limbed, and 

 web-footed — an organization that makes them 

 as much and often more at home in the water 

 than on the wing. The prevailing type of this 

 class is illustrated in swans, ducks, gulls, and 

 loons, while a few of the families, like the 

 terns and petrels, are more aerial in form. 



Nature shades off one class of her creatures into 

 another, and there is no impassable gulf fixed 

 between '^waders" and *' swimmers," however 

 pronouncedly diff"erent the two types are in 

 general. Even among the " waders " there are 

 different degrees of the web-foot, from the total 

 absence of it in many, up to the avocet, which 

 is almost fully web-footed. Nature seems very 



I2S 



