LECTURE VI. 221 



and, according to some late observations, on 

 rats and field-mice. A very extraordinary cir- 

 cumstance has been lately related of this bird ; 

 viz. that it has been known to descend suddenly 

 from its flight, and from some unknown caprice, 

 to attack a horse and its rider with great vio- 

 lence, and with such blind fury as to suffer itself 

 to be seized by the traveller, rather than at- 

 tempt an escape. Two instances of this are 

 recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine of the 

 date of about two years past. 



The two remaining Orders of Birds are the 

 Gralla and Anseres, or the TFaders and the 

 TVeb-footed Birds. The former of these tribes 

 is termed Grallcz on account of the general 

 length of the legs in these birds, which in some 

 genera is such as to give the appearance of the 

 birds walking as it were on stilts, the Latin 

 word Grallae signifying a pair of stilts. The 

 birds contained in this tribe are all the Herons, 

 Cranes, Storks, and Bitterns ; all the Snipe and 

 Plover-kind. The Ibises, the Coots and Rails, 

 and several other birds, some of very large size, 

 and some rather small. I must also here ob- 

 serve, that systematical ornithologists differ in 



