1 66 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS chap. 



toes turn forwards. The number of Phalanges or 

 segments in each varies very much in different species. 

 Usually the first toe has 2 ; the second, 3 ; the third, 

 4 ; the fourth, 5. The Swift has in the respective 

 toes only 2, 3, 3, 3. This and the extreme shortness 

 of his legs must account for his inability (if the inability, 

 as is popularly supposed, exists) to rise from the ground. 

 Mr. Howard Saunders denies the correctness of the 

 popular belief, but I am not sure that the bird is 

 not in difficulties when he finds himself among grass 

 of any length. 



Perching. 



Most of our common birds would soon fall victims 

 to some nocturnal beast of prey, if they had not the 

 power of maintaining themselves on a bough during 

 sleep. To see the machinery by which this is effected, 

 take a bird of some size and cut through the skin at the 

 back of the ankle-joint. We find there, first, two tendons 

 belonging to muscles which have nothing to do with 

 the toes, one of which attaches a little above the foot, 

 the other just below the ankle-joint. As they pass this 

 joint, these tendons spread out and form a sheath in 

 which run several of the tendons that bend the toes, and 

 which are bound together by connective tissue but easily 

 dissected apart. Cutting down deeper we come to other 

 tendons passing to the toes, making the number in all 

 up to seven. Of these the Hallux or first digit (our 

 great toe) has 1 ; the second and third, each, 2 ; the 

 fourth, 1 : while another tendon divides into 3, the 

 branches going to toes 2, 3, 4 respectively. This 



