8G DUBLIN NATTTBAL HISTOET SOCIETY. 



Dr. J. R. KiKAHAN next read a paper, as follows : — 



ON THE SUBAQUEOirS HABITS OF THE WATEE OUZEL (CINCLUS AQUATICUS). 



DuEiNO the years 1849 and 1850, having nearly daily occasion to fre- 

 quent that part of the river Dodder which passes through the romantic 

 mountain glens of Glenismaul and Castlekelly, the great abundance of the 

 water ouzel, or, as the peasantry there call it, kingfisher, induced me to 

 study its habits somewhat particularly. The results of this investigation 

 were brought by me before the Dublin Philosophical Society at its open- 

 ing meeting in the latter year. That communication never having been 

 printed, I purpose to lay before this Society to-night the more important 

 conclusions to which I was then led, the accuracy of which a frequent 

 study of the bird in the counties of Wicklow, "Waterford, Galway, 

 Tipperary, Clare, and Tyrone, have but confirmed me in, and which 

 also, as far as I can learn, have never been fully recorded by any of our 

 authorities. 



The general habits of the water ouzel have been so well and so often 

 described that they need not detain us ; but although it is now some years 

 since M. Herbert announced the fact that this bird is possessed of the power 

 of walking under water on the bottom of streams ; and although the truth 

 of this observation has been strengthened by the evidence of such men as 

 St. John, Dilwyn, Rennie, William Thompson, and M'Gillivraj^, yet 

 still there are found many (especially among the closet naturalists) who 

 prefer to ignore the fact altogether, or else assert that this bird's habits 

 in this respect are identical with those of other divers. 



My observations, made repeatedly during many months, and having 

 for their object the elucidation of this very point, enable me to corrobo- 

 rate M. Herbert's account m eveiy particular, except that the bird car- 

 ries down a supply of air to the bottom enclosed within its wings, in 

 which he most certainly is in error, led away by a fancied analogy be- 

 tween the bird and diving beetles, as I have repeatedly seen them rise to 

 the surface to obtain air, which they do exactly like a grebe, merely rais- 

 ing the tip of the bill out of the water. 



The bird has several modes of diving. When seeking food it generally 

 goes down, like most divers, head foremost in an oblique direction, or 

 else walks deliberately in from the shallow edge of the pool, the head 

 bent down, and the knees (tarsal articulation) crouched. When seek- 

 ing refuge, however, it sometimes sinks like a stone, exactly as the great 

 northern diver ( C. glacialis) has been observed to do — that is, gradually, 

 the top of head the last part submerged, without any apparent exertion, 

 sometimes in the midst of its most rapid flight dropping down suddenly 

 into the water like a plummet. Its course is indifferently with or across 

 the stream, rarely against it. 



It often remains under water totally submerged for fifty seconds and 

 upwards, and during that time wall proceed from ten to twenty yards. 

 When it comes out, the water may be seen i-unning rapidly off its plumage. 



