OF SELBORNE. 255 



sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and 

 distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions ; 

 swifts dash round in circles, and the bank martin moves 

 with frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the 

 small birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance. 

 Most small birds hop, but wagtails and larks walk, moving 

 their legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly 

 as they sing ; woodlarks hang poised in the air ; and 

 titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their 

 descent. The whitethroat uses odd jerks and gesticula- 

 tions over the tops of hedges and bushes. All the duck 

 kind waddle ; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand 

 erect on their tails : these are the compedes of Linnaeus. 1 

 Geese and cranes, and most wild fowls, move in figured 

 flights, often changing their position. The secondary 

 remiges of Tringce, wild ducks, and some others, are very 

 long, and give their wings, when in motion, a hooked ap- 

 pearance. 2 Dabchicks, moorhens, and coots, fly erect, with 

 their legs hanging down, and hardly make any dispatch ; 

 the reason is plain, their wings are placed too forward out 

 of the true centre of gravity, as the legs of auks and divers 

 are situated too backward. 



LETTER XLIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBOBNE, Sept. 9, 1778. 

 the motion of birds, the transition is 

 natural enough to their notes and language, 

 of which I shall say something. Not that I 

 would pretend to understand their language 

 like the vizier, who, by the recital of a con- 



1 " Pedes compedes," Genus Colymbns, " Syst. Nat." i. p. 220. ED. 



2 These are not the secondaries, however, but the tertials. The 

 secondaries are always short. En. 



