SHORT BILLS. 



165 



If the food is in itself harmless, and not liable 

 to escape rapidly, or to require a quick dart of the 

 bill, that organ is short, and any inconvenience which 

 may arise from the distance at which it is below the 

 level of the body, or from the difficulty of the surface 

 on which it is found, is usually got the better of by 

 the length and flexibility of the neck ; but as a long 

 and flexible neck is neither so steady nor so quick in 

 its motions as a shorter one, the bill and neck are 

 seldom both long unless in those species which take 

 their food from the water, by darting rapidly on it 

 by an aim taken when the eye and head are above 

 the surface. Birds of this structure usually find their 

 food on the margin of the water, or in the shallows ; 

 and there is hardly any instance of a bird which feeds 

 on the wing, having both a long bill and a long neck. 



The same observation applies to birds which seek 

 their food while launched on the waters. Swans, 

 geese, and those ducks which never get wholly below 

 the surface, though they get with the head perpen- 

 dicularly under them, and hang, as it were, upon the 

 water by means of the feet, have the neck, and gene- 

 rally also the bill, much longer than the divers which 

 plunge wholly under water ; and the legs of the 

 latter are articulated more in the rear, which makes 

 them more efficient organs of motion through the 

 water ; but the birds could not recover their hori- 

 zontal position on the surface, by means of them, so 

 easily as those swimmers which have not the habit of 

 diving. Those ducks which do not dive, turn on 

 the articulations of the legs, and bring their heads to 

 the surface with very little progressive motion ; 

 whereas the divers rise head foremost, and always at 

 some distance from the place at which they plunge. 

 The common duck gets the head down chiefly by 



