NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 229 
as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all other 
hooked-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill 
as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution. 
All the gad/ine parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly ; but 
fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight 
line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no 
dispatch ; herons seem incumbered with too much sail for their 
light bodies, but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying 
burdens, such as large fishes and the like; pigeons, and particu- 
larly the sort called smiters, have a way ‘of clashing their wings 
the one against the other over their backs with a loud snap ; 
another variety, called tumblers, turn themselves over in the air. 
Some birds have movements peculiar to the season of love: thus 
ringdoves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring 
hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner ; thus the 
cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air 
like the windhover ; and the green-finch in particular, exhibits such 
languishing and faltering gestures as to appear like a wounded and 
dying bird ; the king-fisher darts along like an arrow ; fern-owls, or 
goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a 
meteor ; starlings as it were swim along, while missel-thrushes use 
a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep over the surface of the 
