AVES 295 



noble bird but a moment before all grace and symmetry. He 

 raises his wings, his head goes back, and his back goes in; down 

 drop two enormous webbed feet straddled out to their full extent, 

 and with a hoarse croak, between the cry of a Raven and that of 

 a sheep, he falls ' souse ' into the water. Here he is at home again, 

 breasting the waves like a cork. Presently he stretches out his 

 neck, and with great exertion of his wings runs along the top 

 of the water for seventy or eighty yards, until, at last, hav- 

 ing got sufficient impetus, he tucks up his legs, and is once more 

 fairly launched into the air." 



Several less well-known types of bird are also classed in this order: 

 fulmars, shearwaters, and diving petrels. 



THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS (CICONIIFORMES) 



This rather mixed assemblage of water birds includes: tropic birds, 

 gannets, cormorants, darters, frigate birds, pelicans, bitterns, herons, 

 ibises, storks, spoonbills, flamingoes, etc. So extensive and varied 

 a group is it that it is difficult to characterize it as a whole. It is 

 subdivided into eleven families, most of which are birds capable of 

 sustained flight; many of them are wading rather than swimming 

 birds. 



The tropic birds are true denizens of the tropic oceans, flying 

 hundred of miles from land, and taking shelter and rest amid the 

 rigging of ships when opportunity affords. Gannets are also sea birds, 

 but frequent the colder regions, coming ashore during stormy weather. 

 Cormorants are rather large sea-coast birds with pronounced fish- 

 eating proclivities; they are not exclusively marine, but frequent 

 inland lakes during the breeding season. Darters or snake birds are 

 not marine, but frequent inlets of the sea and fresh-water lakes; they 

 are not very strong flyers, but excel as divers, leaving scarcely a ripple 

 upon the surface when they go down after fish. 



The frigate bird or man-of-war bird is a true sea-bird seldom 

 coming ashore except to nest. The long wings and extremely long 

 tail are distinctive features. Pelicans are familiar large birds of the 

 tropics. The bill is very large and the lower jaw is provided with a 

 capacious pouch in which a large supply of captured fish can be stored. 

 The stubby tail and short legs are familiar attributes of this interest- 

 ing bird. Herons, ibises and storks (Fig. 156, D) have a strong gen- 

 eral resemblance; their long legs, collapsible necks, and slow flapping 



