348 



BIRDS. 



footing into the water ; nevertheless, their feet are not webbed. 

 Their beak is more or less compressed at the sides, and is never 

 so slender or so long as in the preceding family. The body of 

 these birds is also remarkably flattened, their wings are of mode- 

 rate size or short, and their flight feeble ; in all of them the hind 

 toe is very long. To this family belong 



The Jacanas (Parra), distinguishable from all other wading birds by 

 having their four toes mueh elongated and separate quite to their roots; 

 the nails upon all their toes are likewise of extraordinary length, and very 

 sharp, from which circumstance they have obtained the common name of 

 " Surgeons ;" a cognomen, however, which they rather seem to deserve on 

 account of the structure of their wings, which are armed with sharp spines. 

 All these birds are extremely noisy and quarrelsome ; they abound among 

 the marshes of tropical countries, upon the floating weeds of which they walk 

 by means of their wide-spreading toes. 



The Rails (Rallus) likewise belong to this group : some of them, as the 

 Common Water-Rail (Rallus aquaticus], frequent our brooks and large ponds, 



FIG. 385. LAND-RAIL. 



where they manage to swim very well, and also to run lightly over the leaves 

 that float upon the surface ; they feed upon little fresh- water shrimps ; their 

 flesh smells of the marsh. 



The Land-Bail (Rallus Crex], on the contrary, lives and hides itself in the fields, 

 running along amongst the grass with considerable swiftness; his Latin name, Crex, is 

 expressive of his cry. He is sometimes called on the continent the ''King of the 

 Quails," because he arrives and departs at the same time as those birds, and lives 

 nearly in the same localities, so that the vulgar give him credit for guiding all thek 

 movements. The land-rail lives upon grain as well as upon insects and worms. 



