STRAGGLERS. 157 



those birds which shift their residences with the seasons. 

 But the manner in which they do influence the birds depends 

 on the habits of the birds themselves, the general guides to 

 which are the food of birds, and the places where that food 

 is found. The warblers, for instance, migrate from grove to 

 grove, from brake to brake, or from reedy stream and pool in 

 one latitude to the same in another. Other races flit from 

 marsh to marsh, or from moor to moor, when these become 

 periodically dry in the milder latitudes, or covered by ice or 

 snow in the colder. 



The Grallae, and more especially those genera to which the 

 wanderers in question belong, may be said to unite more com- 

 pletely the characters of land and water birds, than any of 

 the others : they find their food either directly in the water 

 itself or immediately on the banks ; and yet their feet are so 

 formed that, most generally speaking, they stand on the 

 ground while they seize it. Some of them have been known 

 to swim for short distances, and it is probable that all of 

 them can swim a little upon emergency ; but swimming is 

 not their habit, and they are not found launched upon broad 

 expanses of water like the regular swimming birds. They 

 wade as far as the tarsi, which are generally long, and also 

 the naked part of the leg (which is called the garter), will 

 allow them ; but the greater number of them find their food 

 without wading even to that depth ; and though that food? 

 consisting of fishes, reptiles, small quadrupeds, worms, and 

 the large aquatic insects, be all of a kind which is most 

 abundant in humid places, or moist states of the weather, 

 they as frequently catch it near as actually in the water. 

 They are thus intimately connected with the periodical inun- 

 dations to which allusion has been made ; and they are 

 adapted for migrating over the whole or the greater part of 

 the quadrant, so as to be always on the different grounds 



