BOOK OP NATURE LAID OPEN. 71 



wonderfully adapted for the purpose of wading and 

 picking up their food from the bottom of the shal- 

 lows; and the webbed feet, oily feathers, and broad 

 bills of those of the Swan kind, are equally so, to 

 enable them to swim along, and lay hold of their 

 prey in the watery element. 



The Pelican of the wilderness is a most dexterous 

 fisher, and nature has provided him with a prodigi- 

 ous pouch, of a singular construction, under his bill, 

 which, although scarcely perceptible when empty, 

 enables him when full to bear ashore as many fish 

 at a time as would suffice sixty men for dinner The 

 Albatross, the most formidable of the Gull kind, 

 preys not only on fish, but water fowl of an inferior 

 size; and his bill terminates in a crooked point, by 

 which he is enabled to lay hold of them on the wing. 

 The Penguin seldom leaves the water ; and while 

 others of the feathery . race only skim its surface, 

 pursues his prey to the greatest depth, and he ap- 

 proaches the finny tribe in his formation as well as 

 in his disposition and ha-bits. Indeed, these animals 

 may be justly reckoned one of the connecting links 

 between the volatile and finny tribes, as not only 

 their fin-like wings and broad webbed feet, but their 

 body being covered more warmly all over with fea- 

 thers than any other bird whatever, and the parti- 

 cular construction of their lungs, all tend to shew 

 that water is their principal element 



How wonderful the migration of birds ! or that 

 surprising instinct by which " the stork in the hea- 

 vens knoweth her appointed times/' " and the crane 



