346 IXSECTI VOILE. 



the thick aquatic vegetation in which they chiefly reside. 

 The wood-peckers, the creeper, and indeed all birds whose 

 habit is to thread their way among close twigs or thick foliage, 

 have the tail wedge-shaped or rounded ; and that gives them 

 the same facility over birds with forked or square tails, in 

 turning laterally, that a vessel with a round stern has over 

 one that is square. 



When birds are classed upon any particular character, the 

 name should apply to the use of that character, otherwise it 

 either has no meaning or a false one. In some of the books, 

 the bird under consideration stands classed as a lark, and that 

 name, which was no doubt given to it from the slight simi- 

 larity in the mottled plumage on the back, induced some of 

 the older authors to add also the produced hinder claw of the 

 lark ; but that claw of the grasshopper bird is short and 

 crooked, well adapted for perching upon twigs, but not for 

 walking on the ground. A long straight claw would be as 

 inconvenient in close bushes as a forked tail \ and no bird 

 whose habit it is to thread the sprays has either the one or 

 the other. Even in the larks and pipits, the round or par- 

 tially wedged termination of the tail, at once distinguishes 

 the wood-lark, or the tree-pipit. The end of the tail and also 

 the tips of the wings are always good indices to the general 

 haunt. If the tail is wedge-shaped, the bird is woodland bred, 

 or rather a bird of the close sprays and bushes, and, in that 

 case, the wings are rounded ; if the tail is square, the haunt 

 is in more open places ; and if much forked, it is in the free 

 air, and the wings are pointed. 



The grasshopper bird (" the Itrokehopper" would not be an 

 inappropriate name for it) diifers from the aquatic warblers, 

 and indeed from all the true warblers, in plumage and expres- 

 sion as well as in haunt and habits. The true warblers, 

 whether aquatic or sylvan, have the colour on the back entire, 

 even when there are strong markings on the other parts ; 



