Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/171

158 brown, often forming a rude crown around the larger end.

In addition to the poetical allusions to this favourite bird, already quoted, we subjoin the accurate description of its nest by Grahame, the biographer of the birds of Scotland :—

A few singularly-formed birds constitute the present Family, whose relations have been the subject of considerable diversity of opinion among ornithologists. Their beak is short, powerful, conical, somewhat compressed at the sides, the two mandibles being arched, the point of the upper slightly overhanging the lower. The feathers of the tail are much graduated, exceedingly long and rigid; they are but ten in number, thus varying from what is customary among birds, the almost constant number being twelve, and agreeing in this respect with the Swifts; as they do also in another remarkable peculiarity, that the hind toe is capable of being turned forwards, so that all the four toes point in one direction. These