304 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



by this web-footed percher. Scarts are well known, 

 and their diving powers are proverbial. 



The Cormorant uses its wincjs as well as its laroe 

 paddles when diving. Grebes do not use their 

 wings, for the hind-parts are finished off seal fashion, 

 taking into consideration that they are birds, and 

 they use their leaf-like, fringed feet to send them 

 through the water when they dive, much in the 

 same manner as seals do. 



Sea water is very clear at times ; there is some 

 quality in it that permits you to see down for far 

 greater depths than you could in spring water. The 

 movements of all divers under water are executed 

 with extreme rapidity. I have seen a little of their 

 movements under water ; not one fraction of what 

 I should have liked to see, but one must rest con- 

 tented. No greyhound — and I have seen some of 

 the best in my time — ever coursed hares with 

 greater keenness than these submarine feathered 

 divers use in coursing the fish. 



I will try to give my readers some idea of what 

 this fish-coursing is like, as I have seen it, frag- 

 ments at a time. There is a sprat-boat on the tide, 

 waitinof to work her nets. She is the first one of 

 the small fleet that has made her appearance there 

 for the season, and she, for the time, has anchored. 

 So far as the water is concerned, it might be the 

 calmest of summer weather ; it is " Gin," or, rather, 

 " Hollands clear" ; quite clear enough on the sandy 

 parts, close inshore, for flounder-spearing. But we 

 are some distance from shore ; three miles out, at 



