CHAPTER VI. 



THE GRALLATORES, OR WADERS, IN CAPTIVITY. 



Their tameable disposition. Fallacy of generalizing too much. The "White 

 Stork and the Black. Gigantic Indian Cranes. Cruelty the companion of 

 ignorance. Strange forms well contrived. The Lapwing and the smaller 

 Waders. The Common Crane. The Stanley Crane. The Spoonbill. The 

 Common Heron. Dr. Neill's Heron. His proceedings, and attempts to 

 breed. Unfortunate end. 



WE should hardly, on a first glance at the Waders, 

 expect to find among them a great number of confiding, 

 friendly, and easily tameable birds ; and yet, if we 

 select the individuals from each order to whom these 

 epithets may be applied, we shall be able to make as 

 long a list from the Waders as from any other, even 

 the Rasores, in which the domestic fowls are included. 

 The Grallatores alone would prove the little dependence 

 there is to be placed upon Mr. Swainson's rasorial and 

 other types, as any guide to the instincts of a little 

 known creature, whatever index they may be to analo- 

 gies of form. It does not follow that because the 

 common fowl is eminently domestic, all other galli- 

 naceous birds should be equally so. The pheasants 

 furnish a sufficient refutation of this notion. And if 

 the Rasores themselves are not universally docile and 

 attachable in their tempers, how can any opinion be ven- 

 tured, before actual experience, respecting their sup- 

 posed representatives in other orders? 



It is very amusing to those who have actually kept 



