Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/419

Rh and to the extremities of the toes four inches more; and the breadth of the wings expanded was forty-two inches. A person attempted to eat the body, but found it very strong and rancid, as is the flesh of all birds living on fish. Divers or loons, though bred in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in very severe winters; and on the Thames they are called sprat loons, because they prey much on that sort of fish.

The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very backward, and so out of all centre of gravity, that these birds cannot walk at all. They are called by Linnæus compedes, because they move on the ground as if shackled or fettered.—. These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set forth in a proper light the wonderful works of God in the creation, and to point out His wisdom in adapting the singular form and position of the limbs of this bird to the particular mode in which it is destined to pass the greatest part of its life in an element much denser than the air, do Mr. White credit, not only as a naturalist, but as a man, and as a philosopher, in the truest sense of the word, in my opinion for were we enabled to trace the works of nature minutely and accurately, we should find, not only that every bird, but every creature was equally well adapted to the purpose for which it was intended; though this fitness and propriety of form is more striking in such animals as are destined to any uncommon mode of life.

I have had in my possession two birds, which, though of a different genus, bear a great resemblance to Mr. White's Colymbus, in their manner of life, which is spent chiefly in the water, where they swim and dive with astonishing rapidity, for which purpose their fin-toed feet, placed far behind, and very short wings, are particularly well adapted, and show the wisdom of God in the creation as conspicuously as the bird before mentioned. These birds were the greater and lesser crested grebe, podiceps cristatus et auritsu. What surprised me most was, that the first of these birds was found alive on dry ground, about seven miles from the sea, to which place there was no communication by water. How did it get so far from the sea? its wings and legs being so ill