i6o BIRD WATCHING 



the great crested grebe and other birds — the cor- 

 morant itself — with whom it has no close affinities. 

 But this cannot be said without considerable quali- 

 fication, for, though the description I have given is 

 from the life and seen over and over again, yet at 

 other times the dive down of this bird is so totally 

 different that no one who had seen only the one 

 could think it capable of the other. In the winter, 

 coots swim about in flocks, and then one may see 

 first one little spray of water thrown up as a bird 

 disappears, and then another. That is all ; there is 

 the spray and there is no bird, whereas just before 

 there was one. Indeed, I think it is a quicker dive 

 than any that I have seen a sea-bird make, only 

 equalled, perhaps (or even, perhaps, not quite 

 equalled), by that of a really alarmed dabchick. 

 As for the process of it, it is undiscoverable, the eye 

 catches only the spray-jet, which is pretty and always 

 just the same. But there is no disorder, no higgledy- 

 piggledyness. It is something which you can't see, 

 but which you feel is the act of a master. Here 

 again, then, the coot in diving is quite the moor-hen's 

 superior. The dive of the latter bird is, as we have 

 said, archaic. It is unpolished, and greatly wants 

 form and style. Now, the coot is fin-footed — that is 

 to say, the skin of the toes is extended so as to 

 form on the interspace of each joint a thin lobe- 

 shaped membrane. In this formation, which like- 

 wise distinguishes the grebes, we may, perhaps, see 

 the gradual steps by which the feet of some more 

 purely aquatic birds have become webbed. As the 

 lobes became larger they would have met and over- 

 lapped, and from this to an actual fusion does not 



