A Bird's-Eye View 



group, found largely upon the surface of the 

 earth, where they commonly nest, and having 

 a flight that is short and low — a group compris- 

 ing many of the game birds, such as pheasants, 

 and quail or "bob -white," the domestic 

 fowls, etc. Ill-defined as are the boundaries of 

 these groups, indeed, with perhaps no bound- 

 ary at all, a bird's-eye view makes clearly evi- 

 dent the distinction on which this method of 

 arrangement is based. 



The affiliations of all in these three groups — 

 comprising two-thirds of all our birds in North 

 America — are distinctly with the land ; and 

 yet among them are not a few premonitions of 

 the remaining third, the water fowl. Contrary 

 to the usual laws of optics, some objects become 

 more distinct as we recede from them ; and 

 this is true of the boundary-line of land and 

 water birds. Each class invades the territory 

 of the other. King-fishers and water-wagtails 

 are scarcely less addicted to the ponds and shal- 

 lows than sandpipers. Woodcock and snipe 

 seem only like the presentiment of water fowl, 

 herons have many of the habits of crows, and 

 the upland plover is not far from the kingdom 

 of " perchers. ' ' Probably Nature had no thought 

 of a fixed gulf between these two great divisions. 



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