162 



ANIMAL SKETCHES. 



CHAP. 



Master Impertinence is scratching his grey poll in 

 garrulous astonishment that we should have so long- 

 neglected him for mere country folk and seaside acquaint- 

 ances. The conceited little cockney, posing, as usual, as 

 the acme and exemplar of civilization ! But look, I say, 

 at his foot. Its deeply-cleft fingers, its backward-pointing 

 thumb convert it into a hand for grasping. This is the 

 typical form of perching foot; and there is an exquisite 

 anatomical disposition of muscles and tendons by which 

 whenever the leg is bent upon the thigh the toes are 



SPARROW. KINGFISHER. GREBE. WOODPECKER. LARK. 



flexed so as to firmly grasp ; and thus the roosting bird is 

 held fast upon his perch by the mere weight of his own 

 body. Of the bird's foot there are many modifications. 

 In that angler, the kingfisher, who sits sedately on a tree- 

 stump longing for a bite, the foot is not nearly so deeply 

 cleft, the outer and middle toes being coherent together. 

 In the wood-pecker, clad in forester's green, or boldly 

 speckled in country attire, the outer toe turns backward 

 like the " thumb," so that tfyere are two toes turned 

 forward and two turned backward, as in the outlandish 



