386 Bird -Lore 



A few Ducks called 'Sawbills' are fish-eaters, capturing their prey under 

 water. Their bill differs a great deal from that of the vegetarian Geese, being 

 long, slim and narrow, with fine saw-edges in place of strainers. 



The Egrets and Herons are largely carnivorous, feeding on frogs, eels, 

 small fish of different kinds and reptiles. The strong, pointed spear-bill of 

 these birds is used with the greatest precision. It is a lesson in painstaking 

 perseverance to watch a Heron deliberately stalk its prey at low tide or in 

 fresh-water marshes. A long wiggling eel has no chance, as a rule, once 

 it is caught in a Heron's bill. Other species belonging to this Order, the 

 Bitterns, Ibises, Storks and Spoonbills, are quite as interesting in habit and 

 structure. 



The Sandpipers, as you may recall, belong to our largest Order of birds, 

 the so-called shore-birds. In this Order, a seemingly endless variety of bills 

 occur, as, for example, long and straight, long and curved up at the end, 

 long and curved down; medium in length and straight or medium and curved 

 to the right; spoon-shaped or formed to act like forceps or probes; short and 

 stout, in fact almost every kind of a bill which would be useful in obtaining 

 food along the shore either under the water, or at the tide-line below or above 

 the surface, among crevices and rocks, or even in moist woodland or on grassy 

 prairies. Compare the bill of the Sandpipers with those of the Phalaropes, 

 Oyster-catchers, Woodcock, Curlews, Avocet and Plovers. The bill of the 

 Woodcock is unusual because of its flexible, feeling tip. 



Bobwhite and its relatives, the Grouse and Ptarmigan, belong to an Order 

 of quite different habit. These are ground-feeding species, for the most part, 

 varying their diet with the season, instead of migrating long distances to find 

 suitable food, as do the Shore-birds, Herons, Ducks and Geese. Seeds, insects, 

 wild berries, buds and tender tips of bushes are sought after by these game- 

 birds and, as we shall see later, man owes much to them, since they rid the 

 fields of great quantities of injurious insects and weeds. The Ptarmigan is 

 more restricted in its diet than the southern representatives of gallinaceous 

 birds, for, during the long winter of the far north, it can find practically little 

 else to eat than the buds and shoots of the dwarf willow and alder. The bill 

 of a wild gallinaceous bird resembles that of our common barnyard fowl, a 

 probable sign of kinship, and we learn that centuries ago the domesticated hen 

 and cock roamed wild in the jungles of India and other parts of Asia and the 

 island of Java. It is characteristic of seed-eating birds to have a stout bill, 

 shaped for crushing or cracking the husk or shell which surrounds the seed- 

 kernel. 



Those of our readers who live in the northern part of the United States 

 should remember to feed the Bob-white when the deep snows come, and 

 wherever this useful bird is found it should be protected. 



From the gallinaceous birds to the Woodpeckers is a long step, so far as 

 feeding habits and bills are concerned. Of all the species mentioned in the 



