s characterized by the most consummate dexterity, and facile
agility. The most expert waterman that sculls his skiff on the Thames
or Isis, is but an humble and unskillful imitator of the dabchick. In
moving straightforward (under water?), the wings are used to aid its
progress, as if in the air, and in turning it has an easy gliding
motion, feet and wings being used, as occasion requires, sometimes on
one side and sometimes on the other. It walks but indifferently, as may
readily be imagined from the position of the legs, so very far back. It
is pleasant to watch the parent bird feeding her young: down she dives
with a quick turn, and presently rises again with, five times out of
six, a minnow, or other little fish, glittering like silver in her
bill. The young rush towards the spot where the mother has come up, but
she does not drop the fish into the water for them to receive until she
has well shaken it about and killed it, so that it may not escape, when
for the last time in its own element. I have seen a young one which had
just seized, out of its turn I have no doubt, the captured prey, chased
away by her, and pursued in apparent anger, as if for punishment, the
following one being willingly given the next fish without any demur."

107. Mr. Gould seems to think that the dabchick likes insects and fish
spawn better than fish, or at least more prudently dines upon them.
"That fish are taken we have positive evidence from examples having
been repeatedly picked up dead by the fishermen of the Thames, with a
bull-head or miller's thumb in their throats, and by which they had
evidently been choked in the act of swallowing them. That it is
especially fond of insects is shown by the great activity it displays,
when in captivity, in capturing house-flies and other diptera. Those
who have visited Paris will probably have seen the grebes in the window
of the restaurateur in the Rue de Rivoli. For years have a pair of
these birds been living, apparently in the greatest enjoyment, within
the glass window, attracting the admiration of all the passers-by. The
extreme agility with which they sailed round their little prison, or
scrambled over the half-submerged piece of rock for a fly, was very
remarkable. That no bird can be more easily kept in a state of
confinement is certain."

108. This question about its food is closely connected with that of
its diving. So far as I understand Mr. Morris, it dives only when
disturbed, and