MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



His feet are so divided into opposite pairs 

 of toes one couple pointing forward and 

 the other backward that he can easily 

 climb even the smooth-barked beech-tree, by 

 digging his sharp claws into any chance 

 inequality in its level surface. He alights 

 head upward, and moves on a perpendicular 

 plane as surely and mysteriously as a lizard. 

 Nothing seems to puzzle him ; the straightest 

 trunk becomes as a drawing-room floor to 

 his clinging talons. But in his climbing he 

 is also aided not a little by his stiff and 

 starched tail, whose feathers are so curiously 

 rigid, like a porcupine's quills, that they 

 enable him to hold on and support himself 

 behind with automatic security. Long an- 

 cestral habit has made it in him " a property 

 of easiness." A practised acrobat from the 

 egg, he thinks nothing of such antics ; and 

 when he wishes to descend he just lets him- 

 self drop a little, like a sailor on a rope, 

 sliding down head uppermost, and stopping 

 himself when he wishes by means of his 

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