BIRDS. 103 



There are never more, and in many birds the fourth, or 

 hind-toe, is either so small as to be obsolete or else want- 



ing altogether. It will be found, I have noted, 



that the swiftest runners (e.g., the ostrich and 

 emu) have fewest toes, a rule that, with few exceptions, 

 holds true of the mammals as well. The adaptations of 

 birds' feet are not less striking than those of their bills. 

 There is the grasping foot of the perching birds, slightly 

 modified in the case of owls and woodpeckers ; the webbed 

 toes of waterfowl, supplemented in the rapacious skuas 

 by powerful claws; the curious lobed membrane on the 

 toes of the grebe and coot ; the comb -like claw of the 

 night-jar and heron. 



Since birds dropped the lizard-like tail of their early 



days they have little left ; indeed, what we call the tail is 



_ in reality the feathers that cover it, and they 



are undoubtedly of more practical use than 

 the real article. In all birds, they serve to some extent as 

 rudders, and to the woodpecker and tree-creeper they 

 are climbing -spurs. Few indigenous British birds have 

 brilliant feathers beneath the tail, which must be a con- 

 sideration when flying silently before a keen-sighted enemy. 

 When I lived in the country, I knew the note of most 

 birds ; but I cannot, try how I will, convey what appears 



to me a satisfactory equivalent on paper. 



Many there are who have made a study of 

 the subject, who write learnedly on the cuckoo's "minor 

 third," and who are content to express the note of each 

 bird by something like "zick-zack," "fink-fink," "churr- 

 wit," &c. Of the nightingale one gives the note as 

 "jug -jug," another as "wit-wit," while Tennyson, who 

 gave us nature with as little editing as possible, rightly 

 caught the spirit of one portion at any rate of its carol 

 as "bubbling." Another word eminently suggestive of 

 bird-song is "shivering." 



I must confess, however, that these attempted inter- 

 pretations of bird-song appear to me scarcely more satis- 



