OF SELBORNE. 
255 
sweep over tlie surface of tlie ground and water, and 
distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions ; 
swifts dash round in circles, and the bank martin moves 
with frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the 
small birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance. 
Most small birds hop, but wagtails and larks walk, moving 
their legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly 
as they sing ; woodlarks hang poised in the air ; and 
titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their 
descent. The whitethroat uses odd jerks and gesticula- 
tions over the tops of hedges and bushes. All the duck 
kind waddle ; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand 
erect on their tails : these are the compedes of Linnaeus.^ 
Geese and cranes, and most wild fowls, move in figured 
flights, often changing their position. The secondary 
remiges of Tringce, wild ducks, and some others, are very 
long, and give their wings, when in motion, a hooked ap- 
pearance.^ Dabchicks, moorhens, and coots, fly erect, with 
their legs hanging down, and hardly make any dispatch ; 
the reason is plain, their wings are placed too forward out 
of the true centre of gravity, as the legs of auks and divers 
are situated too backward. 
LETTER XLIII. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
Selborne, Sept. 9, 1778, 
ROM the motion of birds, the transition is 
natural enough to their notes and language, 
of which I shall say something. Not that I 
would pretend to understand their language 
like the vizier, who, by the recital of a con- 
1 " Pedes compedes," Genus Colymbiis, " Syst. Nat." i. p. 220. — Ed. 
^ These are not the secondaries, however, but the tertials. I'he 
Beconaaiies are always short. — Eo. 
