DUBLIN 1TATURAL HI8T0BT SOCIBTT. 87 



It swims with great rapidity, and appears to rejoice in the water as its 

 true element, hardly ever alighting directly on a rock, but even after 

 its longest flight splashing slap into the water, at the base of the stone 

 selected as a resting-place, and then scrambling to the summit of this. 

 In its motion in the water it more closely resembles the jackass penguin 

 of Cape Horn {Apt. chrysocoma) than any other aquatic bird I have had 

 an opportunity of studying. Like that bird (especially in the breeding 

 season), the ouzels may be seen at times leaping right out of the water in 

 their gambols. 



That the bird actually does possess the power of motion under water, 

 the following notes on a wounded bird, made on the spot, abundantly 

 prove : — 



*' l^ov. 29, 1850. — Bohemabreena. "Wounded a water ouzel which, 

 as I observed them all to do, immediately made for shore. On my going 

 to seize him, he darted into the water, running slap in ; waded in after 

 him ; under water he looks quite glossy, but does not seem increased in 

 bulk, the glossiness probably arising from the oiled state of the plumage, 

 or else from its peciQiar texture. When I first got up with the bird he 

 was perfectly stationary at the bottom, not using any exertion to remain 

 there (this remark applies to two other birds wounded later in the day, 

 which also took to the water). The bird next got under a big stone, 

 and when I poked him out on one side he ran to the other — after the lapse 

 of a minute or so he put his head out of the water to breathe, always 

 keeping the stone between him and me, and when I tried to catch 

 him he would dodge under the water again, and come up on the other 

 side. 



*' Finding that I was still chasing him, he took to the stream, and went 

 under water faster than I could follow him ; he seemed to move now al- 

 together by means of his feet, his wings hanging down behind his tail, 

 though his motions were so quick it was difficult to be positive as to the 

 latter part of this observation. At times he swam in mid- water, using 

 his wings, crossing the current several times, and seeming but little in- 

 commoded by it. 



"All at once he turned over on his back — still possessing the power of 

 continuing under water — struggling to regain hw original position, he 

 spun round and round ; it appeared as though the wounded wing had 

 suddenly failed him, and thus prevented his preserving a due equilibrium 

 in the water. At length he came to the top, when he immediately righted 

 and swam as at other times ; every time I tried to lay hold on him he again 

 ducked and dived down to the bottom, at first all right, and then the 

 tumbling began again. When captured at length, I found him merely 

 winged." 



I was enabled to confirm these observations several times that day, as 

 I obtained seven specimens, five of which necessitated a watery chase 

 before I succeeded in catching them, and one got clear offl I ought to 

 explain such seeming needless cruelty in shooting so many of these 

 harmless birds, but the f^pecimens were required for a series of dissections 

 at that time in hands. 



