28 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



some young birds, even among those of our own 

 country, employ quadrupedal locomotion. 



With regard to the speed of birds in flight, some 

 very " tall " statements, especially of German 

 manufacture, have been circulated ; for there is a 

 strong tendency to exaggeration about this point. 

 Before steam-engines came in, the speed of birds' 

 flight could not be so well estimated as it can 

 now ; as Newton justly remarks in his famous 

 " Dictionary of Birds," the Swallow does not usually 

 travel so fast as an ordinary express train ; and 

 yet this bird is proverbial for swiftness. The speed 

 of the common Pigeon is also well kaown owing to 

 the popularity of Pigeon-races, and these show 

 that it is a good Pigeon that can do its fifty miles 

 an hour ; while the most ordinary observation 

 shows that the Pigeon, though not nearly equal in 

 swiftness to the Swallow, is yest much faster than 

 the majority of birds. 



The speed of small birds tends to be exaggerated, 

 owing no doubt to the quickness wkh which th^ 

 move their wings ; thus. Common Teal are credited 

 with being the fastest of Ducks by some writers, 

 but this can hardly be the case, for in India the 

 Shoveller, and even the heavy Spotted-billed Duck 

 (Anas faecihrhyncha) — the Mallard of India — have 

 been recorded as leading a bunch of Teal ; and in 

 America a flock of the very closely allied Green- 

 winged Teal {Nettium carolinense^ have been seen 

 so hard pressed by the apparently slow-fiytng 

 White-headed Eagle that they had in desperation 



