WATER BIRDS. 205 
The strictness with which the whole district is pre- 
served by the respective owners, secures that seclusion 
which is so congenial to the habits of wildfowl. For 
many a mile their haunts are undisturbed save by the 
occasional visit of the keeper, or the foot of some prying 
naturalist ; and many a quiet summer hour have I passed 
in observing the wild duck 
*‘ Lead forth her fleet upon the lake,” 
or in watching the gambols of the little grebe and the 
water rail, or the glancing flight of the kingfisher ; while 
a walk in winter would reveal in addition the pochard 
and tufted duck, or a flock of the handsome but wary 
goosander. 
There is one subject connected with this order that 
has often excited my interest and occupied my thoughts 
—viz., the property which their feathers possess of re- 
sisting wet. I have never felt satisfied as to the cor- 
rectness of the commonly received theory that their 
repellant qualities were owing to a dressing of oil which 
the bird applied with its bill, and which it obtained 
from the gland or glands which are situated on the 
rump; the more I thought over it and the closer I 
observed and examined, the more convinced I became 
that the idea was not based on fact. ‘That the feathers 
of such birds as seek their food on the water are water- 
proof needs no demonstration ; and this is especially the 
case with those whose home is on the sea, and whose 
feathers are almost oily to the touch. 
Some birds are furnished with only one oil gland on 
the rump, while others have two. I have taken some 
pains to discover how this distribution is made, and 
from an examination of a large number of species I 
