286 POST MORTEM. [CHAP. iv. 



braue thin, easily torn, the pieces of quartz not nume- 

 rous, and scarcely larger than millet seed, all showing 

 that little hard work is required to grind their food of 

 insects, grass, and weeds. The elastic membrane fring- 

 ing the sides of the toes, the length and limberness of 

 the toes themselves, are well adapted for their mode of 

 life, aiding them in running over stones by the water- 

 side, and the reedy, boggy, margins of pools, and occa- 

 sionally in diving and swimming." Are we wrong in 

 believing that these long toes were intended by the 

 Creator to aid the bird in walking lightly over water- 

 plants in search of its subsistence ? They are by no 

 means the only birds in which a similar contrivance 

 has been made to answer exactly the same purpose. 

 Edwards, in his voyage up the Amazon (p. 21), saw 

 "flocks of Jacanas, a family of water-birds remarkable 

 for their long toes, which enable them to step upon the 

 leaves of lilies and other aquatic plants." But, without 

 going so far as South America for an additional illustra- 

 tion, the feet of our own Bittern, with their wide-spread- 

 ing toes, each terminating in a very long slightly-curved 

 claw, exhibit an admirable contrivance for enabling the 

 bird to walk over spongy morasses, in which, were it 

 furnished with feet like those of the Ostrich, it would 

 soon sink, and be inextricably mired. 



" The use of the frontal shield in the Water Hen is 

 evidently to defend the forehead of the bird, when 

 boring and poking for its food in soft marshy ground. 

 We observe the same shield, only of ampler size, in the 

 Coot. The Rook, too, has this defensive armour on his 

 grey bill (the mark by which the Rook is best distin- 

 guished in the field from the Crow), so developed, that 

 it has been said by some to be produced by his boring 



