HOW A BIRD GOKS TO BED. gays 
out interference. Floods in the wooded bottoms may 
compel them to roost in trees, however. Our Western 
partridges nearly all roost in trees. 
We should at first have mentioned that all the 
ostrich forms roost squatting on the earth. Only the 
Apteryx (kiwt) among them has a rear toe, whence 
there is little hope of perching. But this bird rolls 
itself into a fluffy ball with scarcely a sign of neck 
and head or beak apparent. But the ostrich proper 
squats peculiarly, and leaves his form and long neck 
projecting high. The cassowary, however, sits humped 
in a very awkward way upon the tarsi (lower part of 
legs) and end of his tail, as if he would like to get 
farther down if his stiff joints would allow him. 
All the pigeons and fowl forms roost with their 
breasts flat down upon the perch or surface beneath 
them. All the former roosts in trees or holes, perhaps, 
having a good perching foot. Grouses usually sit a 
little apart from each other on the ground. When the 
snow is deep each may make him a kind of burrow 
in the drifts in winter. 
One branch of the Fowl group has a very good, 
long, low down rear toe like a pigeon, and are quite 
arboreal—some of them, as the curassows, even nest- 
ing in trees. 
Many of the oceanic water birds roost on rocks at 
regular places, others on the water doubtless, and 
some, as the petrels, albatrosses, ete., must be able to 
sleep a little while flying or else do without sleep for 
considerable periods, since they have been known to 
follow slow-going vessels for great lengths of time. 
