HOW BIRDS PROCURE THEIR FOOD. 119 



them to find their food under ground as correctly as if it were 

 within full view. The oyster-catcher can detach from the 

 rock and break up mussels and other shellfish. The oyster - 

 catcher, by the bye, can have little to do with oysters except 

 in name, for strong as he is, he could scarcely manage to find 

 his living if condemned to feed on oysters alone. The bill of 

 the merganser and other birds of that kind is perfectly 

 adapted, by means of its curved teeth, to hold their slippery 

 prey, while the inward sloping plates in the wild duck's bill 

 are equally suited for retaining the small worms, &c,, on which 

 they feed. The carrion-feeding ravens and other birds of 

 that class have a most perfect and powerful weapon in their 

 strong and sharp bills. The crossbill, too, shears off the fir- 

 cones and extracts the seeds with his clumsy -looking bill with 

 a facility that no other shaped tool would afford him. In 

 short, go through the list of all birds, and you w r ill find that 

 each one is perfectly adapted in form and powers for procuring 

 its peculiar food. 



Whilst talking of the food of birds I cannot help adverting 

 to the absurd idea of woodcocks and snipes living "by 

 suction," which you see gravely affirmed as a fact ; whereas a 

 snipe or woodcock is as great an eater as any bird I know. 

 Anyone who has kept either of these birds in confinement 

 well knows what difficulty he has had in supplying them with 

 sufficient worms to satisfy their ravenous appetite. My friend, 

 Mr. Hancock, tells me that he has succeeded in keeping many 

 kinds of sandpipers, and even the common snipe, alive and in 

 good health by feeding them principally on boiled liver 

 minced small, which seems to approximate more closely to 

 the usual food of insectivorous and worm-eating birds than 

 any other substance. 



It is amusing to see the arrival of the larger flocks of geese 

 about this time of year. A few small companies of pink- 

 footed and white-fronted geese usually arrive early in the 

 month, but about the 28th, and generally on some quiet even- 

 ing, immense flights of the bean goose arrive in the Findhorn 

 Bay. They come in, just about sunset, in four or five large 

 flocks, and an infinite quantity of gabbling and chattering 

 takes place for several hours ; but by daybreak they seem to ' 

 have determined on their respective beats, and separating 

 into smaller flocks disperse over the land, and do not collect 

 again in very numerous flocks until they are about to leave 

 that part of the country at the end of April or the beginning 



