OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 39 1 



may easily cut the water ; while the feet are palmated, and broad for 

 swimming, yet so folded up when advanced forward to take a fresh 

 stroke, as to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes 

 of the feet are longest ; the nails flat and broad, resembling the 

 human, which give strength, and increase the power of swimming. 

 The foot, when expanded, is not at right angles to the leg or body 

 of the bird : but the exterior part inclining towards the head, forms 

 an acute angle with the body, the intention being not to give 

 motion in the line of the legs themselves, but by the combined 

 impulse of both in an intermediate line, the line of the body. 



Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming 

 of birds is nothing more than a walking in the water, where one 

 foot succeeds the other as on the land ; yet no one, as far as I am 

 aware, has remarked that diving fowls, while under water, impel 

 and row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as well as 

 by the impulse of their feet : but such is really the case, as any person 

 may easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted by 

 dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has given a 

 reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so forward : 

 doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their speed in 

 flying, since that position certainly impedes it ; but probably for 

 the increase of their motion under water, by the use of four oars 

 instead of two ; yet were the wings and feet nearer together, as 

 in land-birds, they would, when in action, rather hinder than assist 

 one another. 



This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only three 

 drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois. It measured in 

 length from the bill to the tail (which was very short) two feet, 

 and to the extremities of the toes four inches more ; and the 

 breadth of the wings expanded was forty-two inches. A person 

 attempted to eat the body, but found it very strong and rancid, as 

 is the flesh of all birds living on fish. Divers or loons, though bred 

 in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in very 

 severe winters ; and on the Thames they are called sprat loons, 

 because they prey much on that sort of fish. 



The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very backward, 

 and so out of all centre of gravity, that these birds cannot walk at 

 all. They are called by Linnaeus compedes, because they move on 

 the ground as if shackled or fettered. WHITE. 



These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set forth 



