. The bird; its form and function . ^ is this true of the wrens, those feathered bundlesof tireless energy and curiosity, whose tails, upturned sohigh that they fairly tilt forward over the back, twitchand jerk with every passing mood. Even the geneticindividuality of a species may be hinted at in the wayit carries its tail; quiet, soft-mannered birds holding it 41 2 The Bird low, beneath the wing-tips, while active, nervous species carry it more or less raised. In certain of the flycatchersthe tail, which hangs demurelydownward, reacts with a jerkto every note of the bird, as ifconnected with
. The bird; its form and function . ^ is this true of the wrens, those feathered bundlesof tireless energy and curiosity, whose tails, upturned sohigh that they fairly tilt forward over the back, twitchand jerk with every passing mood. Even the geneticindividuality of a species may be hinted at in the wayit carries its tail; quiet, soft-mannered birds holding it 41 2 The Bird low, beneath the wing-tips, while active, nervous species carry it more or less raised. In certain of the flycatchersthe tail, which hangs demurelydownward, reacts with a jerkto every note of the bird, as ifconnected with the birds vo-cal apparatus, as in our com-mon Least Flycatcher at everyChe-bec! The jerkins: motion of the Fig. 327.—Tail of Chimney Swift. ., , , tail seems to have becomea regular habit with many birds, and, curiously enough,. iiLt^^HA. ^^Bl^Mmk fe\1 \ % ^^^■EK^ W \ PiG. 328.—Tail of Flicker. especially with those which spend their lives chiefly along Tails 41 3 the borders of streams. We are all familiar with the tip-ping of the tail in sandpipers, and, including the GreenHeron, we will see much the same motion in birds whichhaunt the stream borders; even in the Water Thrush thesame habit prevailing, although, as we saw in the pre-ceding chapter, this bird is closely related to the bright-coloured warblers of our tree-tops. The wagtails havereceived their name from this same habit, of which noexplanation has yet been offered. The Road-runner, a ground cuckoo of the Westernplains, has a tail as long as its entire body, which is asexpressive as the gestures of a Frenchman. When sittingquietly in the shade of a mesquite-bush in Mexico, I haveseen one of these birds dash into sight and drop, like anarrow, upon a luckless lizard. At the moment of attackall ten tail-feathers of the bird were wide-spread anda
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1906
