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The Wading-birds have long bare legs because they live in marshy places, and long necks and beaks to catch the small animals upon which they feed. Snipe and Woodcock have long tapering bills which are alive to the very points with what are called nerves, so that they may be able to feel for worms as they dig for them in the soft sand and mud, where they cannot see them.
Madeira, again, is inhabited by a wonderful number of peculiar land-shells, whereas not one species of sea-shell is confined to its shores: now, though we do not know how seashells are dispersed, yet we can see that their eggs or larvae, perhaps attached to seaweed or floating timber, or to the feet of wading-birds, might be transported far more easily than land-shells, across three or four hundred miles of open sea.
They're wading-birds. When Richard comes he will take you on the sea-wall and show you the redshanks in the little streams among the mud. They are such queer streams. Up towards Canfleet there's a waterfall in the mud, with a fall of several feet. It looks queer. These marshes are queer. And they're so lonely. Nobody ever comes here now except the men to see to the cattle.
Among the birds, the most remarkable were the parroquets and cockatoos, the birds of Paradise of which so many fabulous accounts were given, and which until then had been believed to be without legs, the king-fishers, and the cassowaries, great wading-birds almost as large as ostriches.
Every pond, large or small, is sure to be the resort of tall wading-birds and waterfowls. Presently we come upon a spot where the earth is flecked with golden sunlight, shifting and evanescent, sifted, as it were, through the gently vibrating leaves, softly gilding the sombre drapery of the forest.
Then my heart seemed to leap to my mouth, for there was a rustling in the tall grasses, something seemed to be forcing its way through, and with my gun at my shoulder I was ready to fire at the first glimpse of the scaly skin, but feathers appeared instead, and a couple of large wading-birds flew out.
Madeira, again, is inhabited by a wonderful number of peculiar land-shells, whereas not one species of sea-shell is confined to its shores: now, though we do not know how sea-shells are dispersed, yet we can see that their eggs or larvae, perhaps attached to seaweed or floating timber, or to the feet of wading-birds, might be transported far more easily than land-shells, across three or four hundred miles of open sea.
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