INTRODUCTION. ix, 



describe the characters of the other two divisions of this 

 numerous family the waders and the swimmers; these are 

 generally found far removed from the cultivated world. In 

 exploring the tract which leads us, step by step, to an ac- 

 quaintance with them, we must travel through reeds and 

 rushes, with doubtful feet, over the moss-covered, faithless 

 quagmire, amidst oozing rills, and stagnant pools. The first 

 division of these inhabitants of the marsh are called waders. 

 All the genera, and the different species, of this division 

 have divided toes: they are apparently fitted for living on 

 land, but are furnished with propensities and appetites which 

 direct them chiefly to seek their food in moist and watery 

 places, or on the margins of lakes and rivers, and yet they 

 avoid those depths, where it might seem to be found in the 

 greatest abundance. Most of them have long bills, formed 

 to perforate the soft mud and moist earth, and long legs, 

 bare above the knees, whereby they are enabled to wade 

 through shallow waters in search of food, without wetting 

 their plumage. Others have shorter legs, feathered down 

 to their knees, and bills of varied length: whence it 

 may appear that these are more limited in their powers,, 

 and pick up only such insects or grasses, seeds or roots of 

 aquatic plants, as are to be met with near the surface of the 

 ground, or in shallow pools; whilst others again are known 

 to plunge into the water, and by partial swimmings to extri- 

 cate themselves from it, after they have seized their prey, 

 whether fishes or insects. Some of this class, in the warmer 

 or temperate climates, breed and rear their young in the 

 fens, where they remain throughout the year: others again, 

 but these are few, after the business of incubation is over,, 

 disappear, and are supposed to direct their flight northward; 

 while others, and these by much the greater number, are 

 known invariably to leave the north, and to migrate south- 

 ward on the approach of the winter months, and to return 

 northward in the spring. It must be observed that the 

 swamps and inland waters of temperate climes, are also 

 VOL. ii. b 



