SIDE lylGHTS ON BIRDS 



fly with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight 

 line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wing, 

 and make little dispatch ; herons seem encumbered 

 with too much sail for their light bodies, but their 

 vast hollow wings are necessary for carrying burdens 

 such as large fishes and the Hke ; pigeons, and par- 

 ticularly the kind called smiters, have a way of 

 clashing their wings, the one against the other, 

 over their backs with a loud snap ; tmnblers turn 

 themselves over in the air. Kingfishers dart 

 straight along like arrows ; fern-owls glance over 

 the tops of the trees at dusk like meteors ; starlings 

 as it were, swim along, while mistle-thrushes have 

 a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep over the 

 surface of the ground and water, and distinguish 

 themselves by rapid and quick evolutions ; swifts 

 dash round in circles ; the sand-martin and jack 

 snipe move with frequent vacillations like a butter- 

 fly. Whitethroats use odd jerks and gesticulations 

 over the tops of hedges and bushes. Dabchicks, 

 moorhens, and coots fly erect, with legs hanging 

 down, and hardly make any dispatch. (Gulls, it 

 may also be said, descend from the upper air to 

 snatch their prey from the surface of the water. 

 Terns and Solan geese drop into the sea, and dis- 

 appear like falling stones). Geese, cranes, and 

 most wild fowl move in figured flights, often changing 

 their position. Skylarks rise and fall perpen- 

 dicularly in the air ; woodlarks hang poised ; tit- 

 larks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their 

 descent." 



Here it may be noted that White probably re- 

 ferred to the tree-pipit. Somewhat curiously for 

 so close an observer, he uses the word titlark to 

 designate the tree-pipit and meadow-pipit indis- 

 criminately. It is true of the tree-pipit that it 

 rises and falls in large curves, singing in its descent. 



44 



