AJfD THE OBSEKVATIOX OF BIEDS. 



57 



plants upon wMch these birds subsist. The legs and toes are short, 

 admirably adapted for -walking and running upon a plane surface, 

 the claws reduced to mere nails, which are useful in scraping and 

 clearing away the surface soil in a search after fallen seeds or 

 lurking insects. The wings, comparatively short and rounded, are 

 capable of moderate and tolerably well-sustained flight. 



In the Order Grallatores, or Wading Birds, the long and slender 

 legs enable their owners to wade in shallow water and marshy 

 places, where they seek the food which their long bills enable them 

 to seize below the surface, while their long toes, which in many 

 species are semi-palmated or partially webbed, support them with 

 ease upon the yielding mud or ooze upon which they walk. In 

 most species the bill is longitudinally grooved for a considerable 

 portion of its length, and in some, as in the true snipes, the 

 extremity is dilated and sensitive. 



The Natatores, or Swimming Birds, are characterized by their 

 webbed feet, and in most cases by having the bill compressed 

 vertically instead of laterally, without any of the longitudinal 

 grooves or furrows in it which are observable in the bills of the 

 Grallatorial Birds. The feet, as a rule, are placed far back, which 

 gives the owners a somewhat awkward appearance and waddling 

 gait on land, although their actions are graceful enough when in 

 the water, their natural element. 



On observing a species for the first time, there ought to be no 

 great difficulty in assigning it a position in one or other of these 

 large groups, or Orders as they are termed; and the process of 

 narrowing the limits of this position is, as I have pointed out, 

 gradually effected as we become acquainted with the various modi- 

 fications of structiu'e upon which families and genera have, for the 

 sake of convenience, been based. 



"A good ornithologist," says Gilbert "WTiite, "should be able 

 to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and 

 shape ; on the ground, as well as on the wing ; and in the bush, as 

 well as in the hand. Por though it must not be said that every 

 species of bird has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is some- 

 what, in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them, 

 and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some 

 certainty. Put a bird in motion, 



' et vera incessu patuit .' 



"Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings ex- 

 panded and motionless ; and it is from their gliding manner that 

 the former are still called in the north of England ' gleads, ' from 

 the Saxon verb glidan, to glide. The kestrel or wind-hover has a 

 peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the 

 while being briskly agitated. Hen-harriers fly low over heaths or 

 fields of com, and beat the ground regularly Like a pointer or 

 setting dog. 



" Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air ; they 

 seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens 

 that must di'aw the attention even of the most incurious. They 



