166 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS. CH. XXXI. 



bring with it the moisture which is necessary for the 

 subsistence of all birds of this kind. In fact they 

 have no means of feeding their young except by 

 carrying them to their food, for they cannot carry 

 their food to them. 



The foot of the heron, as well as its general 

 figure, seems but little adapted for perching on 

 trees, and yet whoever visits a heronry will see 

 numbers of these birds perched in every kind of 

 attitude, on the very topmost branches of the trees. 

 The water-ousel manages to run on the ground at 

 the bottom of the water, in search of its food. All 

 these actions of birds seem not only difficult, but 

 would almost appear to be impossible. Neverthe- 

 less the birds perform them with ease, as well as 

 many others equally curious and apparently equally 

 difficult. 



The feet of ducks are peculiarly ill adapted for 

 perching on trees ; nevertheless the golden-eye 

 duck generally breeds in hollow trees, not only in 

 broken recesses of the trunk, easy of access, but 

 even in situations where, after having entered at a 

 narrow round aperture, she has to descend for nearly 

 an arm's length, almost perpendicularly to reach 

 the nest. Through this same entrance also has she 

 to take her young ones when hatched, before they 

 can be launched on their natural element — water. 



