Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/292

Rh way through dense masses of reeds and high grass with so much facility as to escape even after being desperately wounded. The flesh of all these birds is delicate; and from living chiefly upon aquatic seeds and vegetable aliment, they may be considered as aquatic Gallinacea." To these points of resemblance may be added, that many of the species of this Family construct nests of accumulated materials, and lay a great number of eggs.

As in the Family just dismissed, the great length of the toes enables these birds to walk on aquatic herbage without sinking, or on the soft mud and ooze of lakes and morasses. Many swim and dive with a facility not surpassed by that of any of the Ducks, though the feet are not webbed. Some of the most aquatic, however, have a narrow margin of membrane running down each side of the toes, and in one genus this is dilated at intervals, so as to constitute each toe a broad scolloped oar. Flight is rarely resorted to by them as a means of progression or of escaping danger; the posterior limbs are the principal depositories of muscular energy; the sternum is remarkably narrow, the wings short, concave, and moved by feeble muscles; hence the flight, which can be sustained only for a short distance, is slow, heavy, and fluttering; and, during the unwonted exertion, the long legs and feet hang helplessly and awkwardly downward. But on the ground, the close array of tall reeds, or the high grass of the meadow, presents no obstacle to their speed, these they thread with surprising ease; and the bird, which the observer has just seen