212 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
curves.* All of this genus use their tails, which incline down- 
ward, as a support while they run up trees. 
Parrots, like all other hooked-clawed birds, 
walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill 
as a third foot, climbing and descending 
with ridiculous caution. All the gallinae 
parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly ; 
but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous 
whirring, and in a straight line. Magpies 
and jays flutter with powerless wings, and 
make no despatch ; herons seem encumbered 
with too much sail for their light bodies; Spotted Pie woodpecker, 
but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burdens, 
such as large fishes, and the like ; pigeons, and particularly the 
sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings the one 
against the other over their backs with a loud snap ; another va- 
riety called tumblers turn themselves over in the air. Some birds 
have movements peculiar to the season of love : thus ring-doves, 
though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang 
about on the wing in a toying and playful manner ; thus the 
cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the 
air like the wind-hover ; and the green-finch in particular exhibits 
such languishing and faultering gestures as to appear like a 
wounded and dying bird ; the king-fisher darts along like an 
arrow ; fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the 
tops of trees like a meteor ; starlings as it 
were swim along, while missel-thrushes use 
a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep 
over the surface of the ground and water, 
and distinguish themselves by rapid turns 
and quick evolutions ; swifts dash round in 
circles ; and the bank-martin moves with fre- 
quent 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 
altemately.t Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as they sing ; 
* Notwithstanding this general character of flight, which is also applicable to the little tree- 
creeper, there is sufficient individual diversity between the style of flying of our different species 
of woodpecker ; the smallest is considerably the most swift, having proportionably longer wings 
than the others, while the angle at which it ordinarily extends the wing reminds one, as it 
passes overhead, forcibly of the chimney-swallow.— Ed. 
t There is considereble difference between the ambulatory progression of the tree-pipit (or tit- 
