AQUATIC AND FEN BIRDS. 333 



great length ; and others have long necks, but very short legs. 

 It is a rule which universally holds, that where the bird's legs 

 are long, the neck is also long in proportion. It would indeed 

 be an incurable defect in the bird's conformation, to be lifted 

 upon stilts above its food, without being furnished with an instru- 

 ment to reach it. 



If we consider the natural power of this class, in a compara- 

 tive view, they will seem rather inferior to those of every other 

 tribe. Their nests are more simple than those of the sparrow ; 

 and their methods of obtaining food less ingenious than those of 

 the falcon ; the pie exceeds them in cunning ; and though they 

 have all the voraciousness of the poultry tribe, they want their 

 fecundity. None of this kind, therefore, have been taken into 

 man's society, or under his protection ; they are neither caged 

 like the nightingale, nor kept tame like the turkey, but lead a 

 life of precarious liberty in fens and marshes, at the edges of lakes 

 and along the sea- shore. They all live upon fish or insects, one 

 or two only excepted. 



All this class, therefore, that are fed upon insects, their food 

 being easily digestible, are good to be eaten ; while those which 

 live entirely upon fish, abounding in oil, acquire in their flesh 

 the rancidity of their diet, and are, in general, unfit for our tables. 

 To savages, indeed, and sailors on a long voyage, every thing 

 that has life would appear good to be eaten ; and we often find 

 them recommending those animals as dainties, which they them- 

 selves would spurn at after a course of good living. Nothing is 

 more common in their journals than such accounts as these "this 

 day we shot a fox pretty good eating : and this day we shot a 

 heron pretty good eating : and this day we killed a turtle" ~ 

 which they rank with the heron and the fox, as "pretty good 

 eating." Their accounts, therefore, of the flesh of these birds, 

 are not to be depended upon ; and when they cry up the heron 

 or the stork of other countries as luxurious food, we must always 

 attend to the state of their appetites who give the character. 



