230 GRALL/E. 



tioned, sometimes do strike, in the lapwing. The eggs are 

 olive brown spotted with black ; and as is the case with most 

 of the grails, they are large in proportion to the size of the bird. 



From the sand-piper to the avocet, there is a regular suc- 

 cession of birds with bills gradually increasing in elasticity 

 and length, and the habitats of the birds gradually approach 

 nearer and nearer to the water the sand-pipers picking up 

 the small animals that inhabit the gravel ; the tringas those 

 which are on the surface of firm sand and mud ; the snipes 

 boring in the mire ; the godwits poking in the sludgy depo- 

 sits; and the avocets scooping the beds of the shallow 

 water-courses. So that a regular continuation would now 

 lead us to the stream or the pool itself : but here the chain 

 becomes a little entangled ; and it is not our purpose to 

 unravel it, but to get, if we can, at the popular characters of 

 the species. 



That there is in the Grallse a regularly approximating 

 series of species, from those tenanting the dry land to 

 those tenanting the water, where the bird must wade deep 

 or swim, or dive before it can feed, is true ; and it is also 

 true, that all the links of the succession harmonize very 

 beautifully with the localities in which they are found : 

 but the chain is one of a more complicated nature than we 

 can understand. It is two-fold, three-fold, many fold ; so 

 that, if the continuity is broken by the extinction of one 

 species, the place of the last bird is supplied by another, 

 difffering from the former in proportion to the change of cir- 

 cumstances that caused the extinction. There is change, but 

 there is no desertion or abandonment. With every change 

 of the food, there is a change of the feeder partially and 

 gradually, even though that feeder is of the same genus ; 

 but while there is food, there always is a feeder ; and if, by 

 any means, one race becomes extinct, there is another ready 



