Ixxx 
IXTRODtrCTION. 
body more buoyant, increase their speed, or assist their versatility; and 
those which have short tails generally proceed in a straight line, and with 
few windings ; whilst the long-tailed birds commonly skim the air in a 
thousand directions, with a facility which the others cannot acquire. Dif- 
ferent as is their flight, almost as various are their modes of walking ; the 
Turkey and the Peacock strut in pompous, measured pace, as if the ground 
were honoured with their tread the Duck and the Goose waddle awk- 
wardly from side to side, exciting ridicule by their movements. The Wag- 
tail leaps, as it were, by a succession of quick hops, or runs with such 
swiftness, that the eye can with difflculty perceive it place one leg before 
the other ; the Land-rail drags his feet laggingly along in an awkward 
manner, with a poking, outstretched neck, often falling from crossing its 
legs ; the Redbreast hops along with stooping head, and elevated tail flirting 
to and fro, and frequently bending like the act of curtesying ; the Sparrow 
moves by a side-long motion, and proceeds by an acute-angled, yet stiff 
and prim, march; the Magpie now jumps as if its legs were fettered, and 
in the next place it struts with the solemn pace of the Daw ; the Wood- 
pecker ascends the highest trees by a quick motion, resembling that of the 
feline genus in climbing. All the divers, and those other birds, the legs of 
which are situated behind the centre of gravity, appear, in their awkward, 
unsteady gait, to be constantly losing their equilibrium, and to ramble to 
and fro like a ship in a storm. But not alone by their flight and manner 
of walking may birds be readily known, their various actions and attitudes, 
even when seated, are certain marks of distinction to the attentive orni- 
thologist. 
The life of quadrupeds, it has been remarked, bears some proportion 
to the period in which they attain maturity ; diutius gestari qinbiis sunt 
longiora vitce spatia, says Pliny ; but this rule bears no relation to birds. 
After a few days incubation, which answers to gestation in other animals, 
they quit the shell, and in a few months they are decorated with the bril- 
liant colourings of their vesture, their pinions gain their strength, and they 
