Identifier: britishbirds00huds (find matches)
Title: British birds
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Hudson, W. H. (William Henry), 1841-1922 Beddard, Frank E. (Frank Evers), 1858-1925
Subjects: Birds -- Great Britain
Publisher: London, New York (etc.) Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
ll otherBritish birds ; asfs the case with such species as the wryneck, cuckoo, kingfisher,bearded tit, tree-creeper, starling, and nuthatch, there is no other likehim. In figure he is wren-like, stout and compact in body, with short,rounded wings and short, square tail, which, as with the wren, isoften carried upright and jerked. He is a little less tlian the song-thrush in size, and is conspicuously coloured, the greater part of theplumage being black, or blackish brown ; and, in strong contrast, thethroat and upper part of the breast shining white—a big black wrenwith a silvery white bib. Some species always live and move within such narrow limits,or, in other words, are so dependent on certain conditions, that weinvariably think of them in association with their surroundings:—the snipe with the boggy soil; the rock-pipit with the rock-boundseashore ; the tree-creeper with the tree he climbs upon; the larkwith the cultivated fields; and the swift with the void blue sky, through
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 32.—Dipper, i natural size. DIPPER 87 which he is perpetually rushing. In like manner wq invariabljthink of the dipper in connection with the swift, brawling mountain-torrent he inhabits. He is never, or very seldom, found removedfrom it, and is probably more restricted to certain conditions, andconsequently more bound to his home, than any one of the speciesjust named. The stream he attaches himself to must have quietand comparatively deep pools, and the water must be clear to enablehim to detect the larvas of water-beetles, dragon-flies, and otheraquatic insects he preys on, all of which have a protective colouring.He does not range up and down a stream, like the kingfisher, tovisit the various feeding-places; he limits himself to a portion ofit, in many cases not more than a hundred yards in length, andexplores the bottoms of the same pools from day to day, until theymust be as familiar to him—all their inequalities, their stony ridgesand half-buried boulders, and sandy or

Note About Images