placed it, from its slender figure, among the cranes, although it is web-footed like the duck. It is one of those birds of whose history we are yet in expectation. To this bird of the crane kind so little known, I will add another still less known-the Corrira or Runner of Aldrovandus. All we are told of it is, that it has the longest legs of all the web-footed fowls, except the flamingo and avosetta; that the bill is straight, yellow, and black at the ends; that the pupils of the eyes are surrounded with two circles, one of which is bay, and the other white: below, near the belly, it is whitish; the tail, with two white feathers, black at the extremities; and that the upper part of the body is of the colour of rusty iron. It is thus that we are obliged to substitute dry description for instructive history, and employ words to express those shadings of colour which the pencil alone can convey. CHAPTER X. OF SMALL Birds of the crane kinD, WITH THE THIGHS PARTLY BARE OF FEATHERS. As I have taken my distinctions rather from the general form and manners of birds, than from their minuter, though perhaps more precise discriminations, it will not be expected that I should here enter into a particular history of a numerous tribe of birds, whose manners and forms are so very much alike. Of many of them we have scarcely any account in our historians, but tedious descriptions of their dimensions, and the colour of their plumage; and of the rest, the history of one is so much that of all, that it is but the same account repeated to a most disgusting reitera tion. I will therefore group them into one general draught; in which the more eminent, or the most whimsical, will naturally stand forward on the can vass. In this group we find an extensive tribe of native birds, with their varieties and affinities; and we might add a hundred others, of distant climates, of which we know little more than the colour and the name. In this list is exhibited the Curlew, a bird of about the size of a duck, with a bill four inches long: the Woodcock, about the size of a pigeon, with a bill three inches long: the Godwit, of the same size, the bill four inches: the Green Shank, longer legged, the bill two inches and a half: the Red Shank, differing in the colour of its feet from the former: the Snipe, less by half, with a bill three inches. Then with shorter bills-The Ruff, with a collar of feathers round the neck of the male; the Knot, the Sandpiper, the Sanderling, the Dunlin, the Purre, and the Stint. To conclude, with bills very short-the Lapwing, the Green Plover, the Gray Plover, the Dottrel, the Turnstone, and the Sea-lark. These with their affinities, are properly natives or visitants of this country, and are dispersed along our shores, rivers and watery grounds. Taking in the birds of this kind belonging to other countries, the list would be very widely extended; and the whole of this class, as described by Brisson, would amount to near a hundred. All these birds possess many marks in common, though some have peculiarities that deserve regard. All these birds are bare of feathers above the knee, or above the heel, as some naturalists choose to express it. In fact, that part which I call the knee, if compared with the legs of mankind, is analogous to the heel; but, as it is commonly conceived otherwise, I have conformed to the general apprehension. I say, therefore, that all these birds are bare of feathers above the knee, and in some they are wanting halfway up the thigh. The nudity in that part is partly natural, and partly produced by all birds of this kind habitually wading in water. The older the bird, the barer are its thighs; yet even the young ones have not the same downy covering reaching so low as the birds of any other class. Such a covering there would rather be prejudicial, as being continually liable to get wet in the water. As these birds are usually employed rather in running than in flying, and as their food lies entirely upon the ground, and not on trees, or in the air, so they run with great swiftness for their size, and the length of their legs assists their velocity. But as in seeking their food, they are often obliged to change their station, so also are they equally swift of wing, and traverse immense tracts of country without much fatigue. It has been thought by some that a part of this class lived upon an oily slime, found in the bottoms of ditches and of weedy pools; they were thence termed by Willoughby, Mud-suckers. But later discoveries have shown, that in these places they hunt for the caterpillars and worms of insects. From hence, therefore we may generally assert, that all birds of this class live upon animals of one kind or another. The long-billed birds suck up worms and insects from the bottom; those furnished with shorter bills pick up such insects as lie nearer the surface of the meadow, or among the sands on the sea-shore. Thus the curlew, the woodcock, and the snipe, are ever seen in plashy brakes, and under covered hedges, assiduously employed in seeking out insects in their worm state; and it seems, from their fatness, that they find a plentiful supply. Nature, indeed, has furnished them with very convenient instruments |