ORDER GRALLiE. 423 



or crepusculous ; a peculiarity connected with the manner of 

 their subsistence, since it is during twilight and night that the 

 worms issue from their holes in the ground ; and that aquatic 

 insects, and fishes, put themselves in motion. It is then that 

 the plover, the lapwing, the woodcock, the snipe, the jacana, 

 seek those humid places which conceal the animalculae and 

 small worms, which constitute their principal aliment. The 

 bittern, the heron, the stork, and the spoonbills, roam through 

 the marshes, and penetrate into the water, where they can 

 ford without wetting their plumes, to seize the fishes and 

 aquatic reptiles. The curlew, the tumstone, the ibis, the 

 oyster-catcher, the tantalus, frequent the sea-shore, and the 

 banks of rivers, to feed on maritime worms, and the small 

 testacea, and Crustacea, which remain in the sand and under 

 the stones. The clamorous cranes call to each other in the 

 heights of air, when the shades of evening begin to brood 

 upon the streams over which they hover, to descend upon 

 their prey. 



M. Dumeril has made a very curious observation respect- 

 ing the articulation of the limbs of a stork, (ardea ciconia,J 

 which, as it is applicable to all the birds which possess the 

 faculty of sleeping on one leg, we shall insert here. The 

 lateral ligaments of the knee form the pivot of a kind of 

 hinges. The small head of the fibula, engaged in the 

 groove of the external condyle of the femur, follows the 

 motion of this bone, and draws back the lateral ligament. 

 In fine, the condyles are two portions of a circle or pulley, 

 which terminate in front and behind by radiated extremities, 

 more approximated to the point of attachment of the lateral 

 ligaments. The naturalist just cited compares the manner 

 in which the bones of the leg bend back upon the femur, to 

 the play of the blade and handle of a spring knife. The 

 pulley formed by the condyles is the heel of the blade ; the 

 upper attachments of the lateral ligaments are the point or 



