BIRDS. 



69 



brooks, lakes, ditches, canals, seashore) or in damp 

 places (damp meadows and ploughed fields, moors, 



Fig. 41.~The Pheasant (^Phasianus colchicus), 



swamps). They are, therefore, adapted to wading, 

 and for this purpose have a long featherless tarsus, 

 while the lower half of the long shank is quite bare 

 and covered with horny scales. In flight the wading- 

 birds do not draw their legs up to their body, as is 

 the case with the birds already spoken of, but stretch 

 them out behind to their full length. Monogamous. 

 Young precocious (p. 51), except in storks and herons 

 when they are nestlings. The shore-dwellers eat fish, 

 bivalve molluscs, etc. ; only those species living on 

 damp meadows and fields are of use to agriculturists, 

 by devouring insects, snails, and worms. These are 

 indicated by the letter u in the following list o£ the 

 commonest native kinds : — 



Coot {Fulica atra) \ Water Hen (Gallinula chlo- 

 ropus); Corn Crake (Crex pratensis, u); Plovers 



