LAND GEESE AND GROUND-PARROTS 19 



head and long neck above water, most amply 

 justifying the name of Snake-bird given to the 

 Indian species. 



It is curious to note how one finds some swimming 

 birds con^pletely deserting the water, and taking 

 to a land life, though still retaining nearly complete 

 webs to the feet; for instance, the Australian 

 Cereopsis Goose (Cereopsis novis-hollandice) seems 

 never to go into water except to wash, or to escape 

 when wounded, and the Hawaiian Goose {Nesochen 

 sandvicensis), which lives on the old lava-flowB in 

 the mountains of its native islands, exists, during 

 most of the year at any rate, without any water at 

 all, even for drinking, getting the needful moisture 

 from its food of berries and succulent herbs like 

 sow-thistle. Conversely, we have, in the Dippers 

 or Water-Ousels, Thrushes with ordinary perching 

 feet which swim and dive. 



So also one may find the Parrots, so peculiarly 

 adapted for a life in trees, keeping not only to 

 ground life like Partridges in the case of the Aus- 

 tralian Ground-Parrakeet {Pezoforus formosus) and 

 Night-Parrakeet (Geopsittacus occidentalis), but even 

 waxing fat and losing the power of flight, in the 

 case of the New Zealand Kakapo or Owl-Parrot 

 {Stringops habropiilus), which looks like a gigantic 

 degenerate form of the last. And among Cuckoos, 

 birds also specialized mostly for tree-life, we have 

 the swiftest runner of all birds in the American Road- 

 runner or Chaparral-cock {Geococcyx mexicanus), 

 which is only about the size of a Magpie, and yet 



