FEET USED AS HANDS 89 



down with one foot. Cuckoos rarely do so, but I 

 have noted the habit in the Indian " Crow-Phea- 

 sant " (Centropits sinensis) and the South American 

 Guira or White Ani {Guira guira), both of them 

 birds which are more like Magpies than Cuckoos 

 in form and general habits, so that it is interesting 

 to find them reproducing a Magpie gesture also. 

 The curious little fruit-eating Colies or Mouse- 

 birds of Africa also grapple food with one foot. 



Among birds of prey the habit of using the foot 

 for prehension of food is apparently universal, as 

 one would expect from the habit of actually cap- 

 turing the food in this way. The food is usually 

 so hdd down, but small objects may be grasped 

 and held up to the mouth as by a Parrot, especially 

 by Owls, which differ from Hawks and most birds 

 which handle their food with their feet (to use a 

 rather Hibernian expression) by bolting huge pieces 

 and even whole small animals such as mice, their 

 swallowing capacity being very great. Even the 

 Vultures, which do not usually seize live food, and 

 the long-legged running Secretary-bird, use their 

 feet in feeding, and the Cariama, which is so like 

 the Secretary in many ways, though reaUy nearer 

 the Cranes and RaUs, employs its foot in the same 

 way. So does the Weka {Ocydromus) among the 

 true Rails, and the Blue Moorhens (Porphyria) hold 

 up their food in one foot just, like Parrots, a 

 fact which was known to Pliny, who specially 

 mentions it. 



Except for these, however, the habit is hardly 



