. The story of the birds; . ing toward the plovers in one direc-tion, toward the rails in the other, toward the geeseforms in a third, and the pelican forms in the fourth,with some bird-of-prey tendencies in the fifth, is agroup of birds known as waders, composed of twoorders—the crane forms and the heron or stork two do not show such strong relationship ex-cept in feeding habits. Both are usually characterizedby long wading legs with the pants rolled up high,and long, narrow and sharp-pointed beaks for spearingand reaching deep into the water. They often thrustthe beak unopened in
. The story of the birds; . ing toward the plovers in one direc-tion, toward the rails in the other, toward the geeseforms in a third, and the pelican forms in the fourth,with some bird-of-prey tendencies in the fifth, is agroup of birds known as waders, composed of twoorders—the crane forms and the heron or stork two do not show such strong relationship ex-cept in feeding habits. Both are usually characterizedby long wading legs with the pants rolled up high,and long, narrow and sharp-pointed beaks for spearingand reaching deep into the water. They often thrustthe beak unopened into the prey. Some heron forms,however (spoonbill, ibis),have a spoon-shaped bill,bent bills, boat - shapedbills, etc., in keeping withtheir habits, and the beakis also varied in the craneforms. One of these, theseriema^ has a hawk-shaped beak. We can notdwell upon the peculiar-ities of the feeding ofthese groups. Some ofthe forms, as storks, arealmost exclusively up-land. The seizing claws and ^ ^-^P^^ ^^^- ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^. & eagle. (Chapman.) tearing hooked beaks of all the birds of prey render their method of feeding well known. Here is the first use of the foot as a prey- 142 THE STORY OF THE BIRDS. grasping member, and here comes in tlie first tendencyamong the birds to prey on each other. This, how-ever, had prevailed long ago among the lower creatures,and in the land-haunting reptiles that show nearestkinship to birds there were evident modifications forpreying upon each other. In these cases the rule isthat the prey is captured wdth the foot and usuallykilled with it. The most terrible armament of talonsprevail and a remarkable development of strength ofgrasp. The hook on the beak alone, with the jawsclosed, is frequently used to lay out a victim, as thelion uses his unsheathed ]3aw. Some of the low forms of this group, as the car-rion vultures, are not so well armed. Indeed, theyscarcely have a foot fit for grasping. They are won-derfully endowed for soaring flight, ke
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1897
