Il6 NATURAL HISTORY. 



power of minute observation, we may quote his remarks on 

 the motions of birds, though there is hardly a letter in this 

 charming book that does not exhibit the same close and 

 faithful observation of nature in its out-of-door aspects. 

 * A good ornithologist,' he writes, ' should be able to 

 distinguish birds in the air, as well as by their colours 

 and shape, on the ground as well as on the wing, and 

 in the bush as well as in the hand. For, though it must 

 not be said that every species of birds has a manner 

 peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat, in most genera 

 at least, that at first sight discriminates them, and 

 enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them 

 with some certainty. Put a bird in motion, 



Et vera incessu patuit 

 ( And it is truly declared by its gait). 



Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles, with wings 

 expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding 

 manner that the former are still called, in the north of 

 England, gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan, to glide. 

 The kestrel, or windhover, has a peculiar mode of hang- 

 ing in the air in one place, his wings all the while being 

 briskly agitated. Hen-harriers fly low over heaths or 

 fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a 

 pointer or setting dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, 

 as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast. 

 There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw 

 the attention even of the most incurious they spend all 

 their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on 

 the wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and when they 

 move from one place to another, frequently turn on their 

 backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling on the 



