RAVENS, CURLEWS, AND EIDER-DUCKS 155 



for he has many ways of doing so, and it is not very 

 often that he will repeat the same thing twice in 

 succession. Sometimes he dips so smoothly and 

 still-ly down that one seems hardly to miss him from 

 where he was ; there is just a swirl on the stream — 

 which seems, now, to represent him — and that all but 

 silent sound, so cool and pleasant, as of water sucked 

 down into water. Or, swimming smoothly down the 

 current, he stops suddenly, brings the neck stiffly and 

 straightly forward, with eye fixed intently, severely 

 on the water — piercing down into it as though making 

 a point — and then down he goes with a click, almost 

 a snap, flirting the water-drops up into the air with his 

 tiny little mite of a tail. I have seen it stated, I think, 

 that the dabchick has no tail, or that he has no tail 

 to speak of I shall speak of it, for I have seen it 

 enter largely into his deportment. When, as I say, 

 he dives like this, suddenly, it may be flirted up with 

 such vigour that, mite as it is, it will send a little 

 shower of sparkling drops to 20 feet away or more. 

 It may be said that it is not so much the tail as the 

 whole body that does this. I say that the tail has its 

 share, and a good share, too — more, perhaps, than is 

 quite fair. At any rate, I have seen the prettiest 

 little drop of all whisked right off the tip of it, and 

 the sun shining more upon that one than any of the 

 others — and that, I think, is having a tail to speak of 

 But when swimming along quite quietly, the dab- 

 chick's tail, instead of being cocked or flirted up like 

 the moor-hen's, is drawn smoothly down on the water 

 so as not to project and thus interfere with its owner's 

 appearance, which is that of a little, smooth, brown, 

 oiled powder - puff, " smooth as oil, soft as young 



