WA'IER-FOWL b, 



base, to prevent them from sinking while they walk in the mud, Lu 

 it otherwise rather retards than advances their motion. 



The shortness of the legs in the web-footed kinds, renders therr 

 as unfit for walking on land, as it qualifies them for swimming ir 

 their natural element. Their stay, therefore, upon land, is but short 

 and transitory, and they seldom venture to breed far from the sides 

 of those waters where they usually remain. In their breeding pea- 

 sons, their young are brought up by the water-side, and they are 

 covered with a warm down, to fit them for the coldness of their situ- 

 ation. The old ones also have a closer, warmer plumage than birds 

 of any other class. It is of their feathers that our beds are composed, 

 as they neither mat nor imbibe humidity, but are furnished with an 

 animal oil that glazes their surface, and keeps each separate. In 

 some, however, this animal oil is in too great abundance, and is as of- 

 fensive from its smell, as it is serviceable for the purposes of house- 

 hold economy. The feathers, therefore, of all the penguin kind are 

 totally useless for domestic purposes, as neither boiling nor bleaching 

 can divest them of their oily rancidity. Indeed, the rancidity of all 

 new feathers, of whatever water-fowl they be, is so disgusting that 

 our upholsterers give near double the price for old feathers that they 

 afford for new ; to be free from smell, they must all be lain upon for 

 some time, and their usual method is to mix the new and the old to- 

 gether. 



This quantity of oil, with which most water-fowl are supplied, con- 

 tributes also to their warmth in the moist element where they reside 

 Their skin is generally lined with fat, so that with the warmth of the 

 feathers externally, and this natural lining more internally, they are 

 better defended against the changes or the inclemencies of the wea- 

 ther, than any other class whatever. 



As, among land-birds, there are some found fitted entirely for de- 

 predation, and others for a harmless method of subsisting upon vege- 

 tables, so also, among these birds, there are tribes of plunderers that 

 prey, not only upon fish, but sometimes upon water-fowl themselves. 

 There are likewise more inoffensive tribes, that live upon insects and 

 vegetables only. Some water-fowls subsist by making sudden stoops 

 from above, to seize whatever fish comes near the surface ; others 

 again, not furnished with wings long enough to fit them for flight, 

 take their prey by diving after it to the bottom. 



From hence all water-fowl naturally fall into three distinctions. 

 Those of the Gull kind, that, with long legs and round bills, fly along 

 the surface to seize their prey : those of the Penguin kind, that, with 

 round bills, legs hid in the abdomen, and short wings, dive after their 

 prey : and, thirdly, those of the Goose kind, with flat broad bills, that 

 lead harmless lives, and chiefly subsist upon insects and vegetables. 



These are not speculative distinctions, made up for the arrange- 

 ment of a system ; but they are strongly and evidently marked oy 

 nature. The gull kind are active and rapacious ; constantly, except 

 when they breed, keeping upon the wing ; fitted for a life of rapine, 

 with sharp, straight bills for piercing, or hooked at the end for hoia- 

 mg their fishy prey. In this class " we may rank the Albatross, the 

 Cormorant the Gannet or Soland Goose, the Shag, the Fngate-bird 



