INTRODUCTION. 
47 
their necessities requiring them to be continually on the verge 
of the flowing or retreating wave, the activity of their motions 
forms a striking contrast with the patient habits of the Heron 
tribe, who sometimes stand fixed and motionless, for hours 
together, by the margin of the pool or stream, watching to 
surprise their scaly prey. 
Some few again, whose favourite food lies at the soft oozy 
bottoms of shallow pools, have the bill so extremely slender and 
delicate, as to be altogether unfit for penetrating either the 
muddy shores, or sandy sea-beach; though excellently adapted 
for its own particular range, where lie the various kinds of food 
destined for their subsistence. Of this kind are the Avosets of 
the present volume, who not only wade with great activity in 
considerably deep water; but having the feet nearly half- web- 
bed, combine in one the characters of both wader and swimmer. 
It is thus, that by studying the living manners of the difier- 
ent tribes in their native retreats, we not only reconcile the 
singularity of some parts of their conformation with divine wis- 
dom; but are enabled to comprehend the reason of many others, 
which the pride of certain closet naturalists has arraigned as 
lame, defective and deformed. 
One observation more may be added: the migrations of this 
class of birds are more generally known and acknowledged than 
that of most others. Their comparatively large size and im- 
mense multitudes, render their regular periods of migration (so 
strenuously denied to some others) notorious along the whole 
extent of our sea-coast. Associating, feeding, and travelling 
together in such prodigious and noisy numbers, it would be no 
less difficult to conceal their arrival, passage and departure, than 
that of a vast army through a thickly peopled country. Consti- 
tuting also, as many of them do, an article of food and interest 
to man, he naturally becomes more intimately acquainted with 
their habits and retreats, than with those feeble and minute 
kinds, which offer no such inducement, and perform their mi- 
grations with more silence, in scattered parties, unheeded or 
overlooked. Hence many of the Waders can be traced from 
