166 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS cHap. 
toes turn forwards. The number of Phalanges or 
segments in each varies very much in different species. 
Usually the first toe has 2; the second, 3 ; the third, 
4; the fourth, 5. The Swift has in the respective 
toes only 2, 3, 3, 3. This and the extreme shortness 
of his legs must account for his inability (if the inability, 
as is popularly supposed, exists) to rise from the ground. 
Mr. Howard Saunders denies the correctness of the 
popular belief, but I am not sure that the bird is 
not in difficulties when he finds himself among grass 
of any length. 
Perching. 
Most of our common birds would soon fall victims 
to some nocturnal beast of prey, if they had not the 
power of maintaining themselves on a bough during 
sleep. To see the machinery by which this is effected, 
take a bird of some size and cut through the skin at the 
back of the ankle-joint. We find there, first, two tendons 
belonging to muscles which have nothing to do with 
the toes, one of which attaches a little above the foot, 
the other just below the ankle-joint. As they pass this 
joint, these tendons spread out and form a sheath in 
which run several of the tendons that bend the toes, and 
which are bound together by connective tissue but easily 
dissected apart. Cutting down deeper we come to other 
tendons passing to the toes, making the number in all 
up to seven. Of these the Hallux or first digit (our 
great toe) has 1; the second and third, each, 2; the 
fourth, 1: while another tendon divides into 3, the 
branches going to toes 2, 3, 4 respectively. This 
