For a long neck is weak, and it is on their
superior strength that carnivorous birds depend for their subsistence.
No bird, therefore, that has talons ever has an elongated neck. In
web-footed birds, however, and in those other birds belonging to the
same class, whose toes though actually separate have flat marginal
lobes, the neck is elongated, so as to be suitable for collecting food
from the water; while the legs are short, so as to serve in
swimming. The beaks of birds, as their feet, vary with their modes
of life. For in some the beak is straight, in others crooked;
straight, in those who use it merely for eating; crooked, in those
that live on raw flesh. For a crooked beak is an advantage in
fighting; and these birds must, of course, get their food from the
bodies of other animals, and in most cases by violence. In such birds,
again, as live in marshes and are herbivorous the beak is broad and
flat, this form being best suited for digging and cropping, and for
pulling up plants. In some of these marsh birds, however, the beak
is elongated, as too is the neck, the reason for this being that the
bird get its food from some depth below the surface. For most birds of
this kind, and most of those whose feet are webbed, either in their
entirety or each part separately, live by preying on some of the
smaller animals that are to be found in water, and use these parts for
their capture, the neck acting as a fishing-rod, and the beak
representing the line and hook.
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