INTRODUCTION. 47 



their necessities requiring them to be continually on the verge 

 of the flowing or retreating wave, the activity of their motions 

 forms a striking contrast with the patient habits of the Heron 

 tribe, who sometimes stand fixed and motionless, for hours 

 together, by the margin of the pool or stream, watching to 

 surprise their scaly prey. 



Some few again, whose favourite food lies at the soft oozy 

 bottoms of shallow pools, have the bill so extremely slender and 

 delicate, as to be altogether unfit for penetrating either the 

 muddy shores, or sandy sea-beach; though excellently adapted 

 for its own particular range, where lie the various kinds of food 

 destined for their subsistence. Of this kind are the JLvosets of 

 the present volume, who not only wade with great activity in 

 considerably deep water; but having the feet nearly half- web- 

 bed, combine in one the characters of both wader and swimmer. 



It is thus, that by studying the living manners of the differ- 

 ent tribes in their native retreats, we not only reconcile the 

 singularity of some parts of their conformation with divine wis- 

 dom; but are enabled to comprehend the reason of many others, 

 which the pride of certain closet naturalists has arraigned as 

 lame, defective and deformed. 



One observation more may be added: the migrations of this 

 class of birds are more generally known and acknowledged than 

 that of most others. Their comparatively large size and im- 

 mense multitudes, render their regular periods of migration (so 

 strenuously denied to some others) notorious along the whole 

 extent of our sea-coast. Associating, feeding, and travelling 

 together in such prodigious and noisy numbers, it would be no 

 less difficult to conceal their arrival, passage and departure, than 

 that of a vast army through a thickly peopled country. Consti- 

 tuting also, as many of them do, an article of food and interest 

 to man, he naturally becomes more intimately acquainted with 

 their habits and retreats, than with those feeble and minute 

 kinds, which offer no such inducement, and perform their mi- 

 grations with more silence, in scattered parties, unheeded or 

 overlooked. Hence many of the Waders can be traced from 



