“Up and down, up and down,

From the base of the wave to the billow’s crown,

And amidst the flashing and feathery foam

The stormy petrel finds a home.”

They are smaller and lighter than the common gulls, and are never so happy as when darting over the foam of an angry sea, while their more delicate relations, the Terns or sea-swallows, with their long pointed wings and forked tails, are taking shelter in the quiet bays.

Lastly, king among all sea-flying birds is the gigantic petrel, the Albatross. What a grand fellow he is when he is once on the wing, though he has some difficulty in starting. Flying onward, onward, without resting day or night, his pure white body near down to the water, his large head and short thick neck slightly bent, and his long, narrow, black wings, often measuring ten feet from tip to tip, widely outspread, he beats a few powerful strokes, and then sails along, using his head and tail as rudders to turn his wings to the wind. Often he will follow a ship for days, sailing round and round in circles, and yet keeping easily ahead, while all the time his bright eye watches the water to catch every chance of food. Jelly-fish, cuttle-fish, and real fish of all kinds, together with any dead creatures he may find afloat,—all is food to him, and his powerful beak will cut through the toughest morsel. For days and days he will fly on, never tiring, and feeding as he goes; and if he alights for a time upon the water he rises with difficulty, unless the waves are high and bear him up on their crests; and when he comes to rest it is on some island in mid-ocean, where he seeks a mate, and brings up his nestlings either on the low ground or on the top of a high mountain, in a hollow lined with grass and moss. Truly, if we look at the far-flying albatross we must acknowledge that the wings of a bird have given him the command of the sea as well as the land.

Fig. 38.

Albatrosses and Penguins.

He forms a strange contrast to the curious stunted bird form which we may find in those same islands where the mother albatross lays her eggs. For there, in the islands of the South Pacific, close by the side of the albatross nest, are whole groups of strange-looking birds, the Penguins, with their fat, white, feathered breasts, their dark head and beak, their curious hind legs set right at the end of their body, and their small paddle-like wings, covered with short stiff feathers, quite useless for flight. We have come upon a strange story here, for our penguin is a low relation, of the guillemots and puffins whom we left in the north, and, like the great northern auk, which has now been extinct for many years, he has lost the use of his wings. He has no dangerous enemies on these rocky inaccessible islands, where he and his companions form dense penguin rookeries upon the ground, unless it be the large gulls or skuas which steal the eggs. Nor has he any need for flying, for the sea is all around him, and even if he wishes to migrate to warmer waters in winter, he does so by swimming. Therefore we find that his wings are lost to him for any flying purpose, and

nothing can be more awkward than he looks, shuffling or hopping along with outstretched arms, like a fat baby, till he comes to the water’s edge. But when he dives in and swims it is quite a different matter. Then his easy wavy motion, like that of a seal, shows at once that his stumpy imperfect wings are excellent fins, while his feet serve him both as oars and rudders.

Thus we have traced our swimming and web-footed birds to their extreme types—the strongest flyer in the albatross, and the lowest, most fish-like bird in the penguin; while, if we were to follow the pointed-winged frigate-bird in his flight, or see the pouched pelican in his home, we should find another group of these web-footed birds, no longer merely standing upon rocks, but perching upon the boughs of trees, and building their nests by the side of rivers in warm countries nearly all over the world, or among the mangrove bushes of the tropical islands.

* * * * *

And now, if we return to our northern shores and pause upon the broad wet sands at low tide, we may chance to find whole flocks of active little birds hovering and running and wading in the water, or pecking on the sands; and the double-noted whistle of the Curlew, or the musical cry of the Peewit (or Lapwing), tell us at once that they are “waders,”—birds with bare legs, flat toes, and long beaks, which drop down on the muddy flats by the sea, seeking their food at the edge of the water. There they are, Curlews and Dunlins and Sandpipers, Plovers and Knots, Oystercatchers feeding on mussels and limpets, and Turnstones tilting up the lumps of mud to find food beneath. One and all they are running hither and thither, to seize here a shrimp or sandhopper or a tiny fish, there a worm or a sea-slug; making the most of their time before the sea comes up and covers their feeding ground.

Fig. 39.

A group of Wading Birds.

1, Stilt; 2, Avocet; 3, Peewit; 4, Dunlins; 5, Curlew Sandpiper; 6, Sanderling; 7, Oystercatcher; 8, Curlew; 9, Turnstone.

Here we have no webbed feet or legs set far back, but three long, flat, straight toes, well fitted for walking on marshy ground and treading lightly on water-plants, and slender bodies well balanced on long thin legs, which move so quickly as they run that you can scarcely see them; while, when they fly, their long wings carry them lightly through the air, with their legs stretched out behind.

Fig. 40.

The Flamingo.

A duck-billed and web-footed bird among the waders.

What connection can there be between these active light little beings, and the broad-bodied web-footed swimmers? Go to the Zoological Gardens, and look at the Flamingo, with his long legs and curious curved beak. He is of the true swimming type, with his webbed feet and his sieve-like bill, with its rows of horny strainers like the geese; yet he feeds by wading in salt-water lakes and pools on the sea-shore, raking the bottom for food, and showing how a swimmer and a wader may once have had the same starting-point, before the one went out to sea, and the other in to shore. And then when we come back to our own little waders, and learn that they visit the sea, and feed upon the wet sands from the autumn to the spring, and then fly inland to build their nests in the damp meadows,

feeding on earthworms, slugs, and insects of the land, we can see what an advantage this double life must be to them.

Notice, too, how shy and timid they have become from living among other animals, and watching for every danger. Try to get near one, and see how it will run on, turning its head hither and thither to watch, and at last will rise and be out of sight in no time. Or go and look for plover’s eggs on the swampy grounds in our northern counties in the early summer, when

“... from the shore

The plovers scatter o’er the heath,

And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.”

The mother will no sooner see you than she will crouch down, running along a rut, and then move slowly away with a drooping wing as if wounded, hoping to make you follow her and pass by the little earthy hollow where her precious eggs are lying. The experience of life has made these little ground-nesting birds very intelligent, since they have had a land as well as a watery home, and the little moor-hen, which, like the rails and crakes, has taken entirely to a freshwater life in ponds, brooks, canals, and rivers, has learned to hide her nest so skilfully, and to dive and swim so cleverly, that even a trained water-spaniel often loses her when close upon her home.

And as the swimmers have their large birds in the albatross, so the waders too have theirs in the Herons, the Storks, and the Cranes. Who does not know how the storks fly in flocks to the sunny south in winter, and come back in the spring to build their nests in the chimneys of the houses of Holland and Germany, feeding on the banks of rivers, and in the fens on lizards, fish, frogs, and water-snakes; or how the cranes pass their summer in the stormy north, and their winter among the old ruins of Egyptian greatness? But the herons remain with us all the year, feeding on shrimps and crabs on the weed-covered shores, or more often in ponds and lakes upon frogs, water-rats, and fish. How patiently you may see a heron stand with his head slightly bent, still and motionless, till a fish passes by! Then quick as a flash of lightning, his head darts forward, impaling or seizing the prey in the strong beak, and he is off to eat it at his leisure. Thus he lives a solitary life all the year until the springtime, when he flies off to some group of lofty trees where for generations his family have built their nests, and, meeting with his fellows, piles up huge masses of sticks and grass among the tangled boughs.

And there the young herons are hatched and fed in the ancient heronry till they can perch and fly. For now among the waders we have come to birds that can perch, as we did among the swimmers (see p. 148). The heron has no longer the three-toed flat foot of the wader, with perhaps a slight spur behind, but a large fourth toe, with which he can grasp the bough; and as he flies across the country, uttering his strange harsh cry, often rising even higher than the hawks and falcons, and alighting on the top of some tall tree, few people would think of classing him among the waders, so like is he to those true land-birds whose life is spent in the air and whose home is in the trees.

--- THE FIRST KNOWN LAND BIRD

CHAPTER VII. THE FEATHERED CONQUERORS OF THE AIR. Part II.—From Running to Flying: From Mound Laying to Nest Building: From Cry to Song.

So the deserts and plains have their ostriches and cassowaries, the open ocean its albatrosses and its penguins, the shores their ducks, gulls, and waders, and the little inland pools and marshes their water-birds,

which come there to build their nests and seek for food. Yet these are after all not by any means the larger portion of the bird world. It is in the woods and forests, the moors and pastures, on the solitary mountain peaks above, and in the snug valleys nestling below, that we find the myriads of song birds and game birds and birds of prey; of climbing birds such as the Woodpeckers; swiftly sailing birds such as the Swifts, cooing Wood-pigeons and cawing Rooks; terrible Eagles and Hawks, or sweet-singing Nightingales and Thrushes.

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