CHAP, iv.] PKOOFS OF DESIGN. 287 



in cow-droppings and hollow turfy ground for worms 

 and beetles ; but we have only to examine the bill to see 

 that it is a provision of nature for his mode of life. 

 If we compare the bills of birds which subsist on grain 

 and berries, with those of the Water Hen and the Coot, 

 the contrast will strikingly illustrate the adaptation 

 now noticed. In our most cursory and general observa- 

 tions, as well as in our minutest researches, the grand 

 fact is incessantly presented to the mind, that over all 

 these works infinite skill, harmonious adaptation, and 

 the most watchful benevolence preside. 



" The linsey-woolsey undercoat of the Water Hen is 

 admirably adapted to its amphibious mode of life. Man 

 has been unable hitherto to devise anything approach- 

 ing to the soft, warm, and elastic waterproof mantle of 

 the Gallinule. All our combinations of Welsh flannel, 

 Llama cloth, and mackintosh, are infinitely inferior to 

 the coverings of the Duck and the Goose. The way in 

 which this clothing is distributed on the body of the 

 Water Hen, is well worthy of notice. The whole is 

 warm and waterproof; but the inner garment over the 

 crop, where it meets the brush of the water in the act 

 of running through wet grass and in diving, is much 

 thicker than on the breast, within which the vital organs 

 are well shielded by muscles and bone. Over the belly 

 again, the thick, close, impervious down covers the in- 

 testines, and preserves them effectually from the wet 

 and cold to which they are so much exposed in wading 

 through the moist rank herbage of their favourite 

 swamps. It has often struck me, in examining water- 

 fowl, that the air inclosed in the delicate net-work of 

 down must be one provision for keeping the bird dry, 

 as if it were sailing upon a natural air cushion." D. L. 



The reader will be pleased to have one or two original 



