CHAPTER XXVIII 
THE ORDER OF DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS 
AN AT I DAE 
We have now reached the first Order of a great group of birds which might well stand as a Sub- 
class — the Web-Footed Swimmers. It embraces six different Orders, and before touching any 
one of them, it is highly necessary that the student should take a bird’s-eye view of the whole sub- 
division. A clear conception of these six Orders, and the characters on which they are based, will 
be of great and perpetual service to every person who desires a comprehensive view of the avian 
world : 
THE ORDERS OF SWIMMING-BIRDS. 
THE 
WEB-FOOTED 
BIRDS. 
FLYING 
SWIMMERS: 
with good 
wings. 
DIVING 
SWIMMERS: 
with small 
wings, or none 
for flight. 
Ducks and Geese 
(three toes webbed). 
Fully Palmated Birds 
(four toes webbed) . 
Cormorants, Pelicans, Snake- 
Birds, etc. 
Tube-Nosed Swimmers. 
Albatrosses and Petrels. 
Long-Winged Swimmers. 
Gulls, Terns, etc. 
Weak-Winged Divers. 
Loons, Grebes, Auks, Puf- 
fins. 
Flightless Divers. 
Penguins. 
AN-A-TI' DAE. 
STEG-AN-OP'O-DES. 
TU-BI-NA'RES. 
LON-GI-PEN'NES. 
PY-GOP'O-DES. 
IM-PEN'NES. 
This group is not only extensive, but its mem- 
bers show a wide diversity in form and habits, 
and they are fitted for life in all climates, on 
waters great and small. Having before us 
such a host of swimming-birds that six Orders 
are necessary to classify them, it is difficult to 
select only a few examples, and resolutely ex- 
clude all others. However, the student who 
becomes permanently acquainted with about 
thirty-five web-footed birds specially chosen 
to represent these Orders, will have a very good 
foundation on which to budd higher, with the 
aid of special books and specimens. 
As heretofore, we will take up the selected 
examples in the order in which it is easiest for 
the student to receive them, — the highest types 
first, — rather than in the very curious sequence 
adopted by the A. 0. U., and most technical 
writers on birds. 
Once a year, the grand army of birds of the 
Order Anatidae take wing, and sweep north- 
ward from the tropics and sub-tropics. Many 
halt in the temperate zone, where food is abun- 
dant, but many more press on to the arctic 
circle, and far beyond it. Wherever they pause 
for the summer, they nest and rear their young; 
and many pages might be filled with descriptions 
of the different kinds of nesting-sites and nests. 
One would naturally suppose that in any 
civilized country, birds in flight to their breeding- 
