RAVENS, CURLEWS, AND EIDER-DUCKS i6i 



seem an impassable gulf. This, however, is only a 

 supposition. It seems more likely that the web has 

 been, in most cases, gained by the extension of the 

 slight membrane between the toes, at their junction 

 with one another. Possibly the lobes on the toes of 

 the coot were gained before he became a swimmer, 

 and served the purpose of supporting him on mud or 

 floating vegetation, or, as perhaps is more probable, 

 they may have been developed in accordance with 

 the double requirement. At any rate, if we suppose 

 this structural modification to have been effected after 

 the bird became in some degree truly acquatic, then, 

 though this does not prove that the period at which 

 it became so was longer ago than in the case of the 

 moor-hen, which has remained structurally unaffected, 

 yet it, perhaps, renders it likely, and we can, by sup- 

 posing so, understand why the one bird should dive 

 habitually and the other only occasionally. 



The great crested grebe exhibits the same feature 

 of variety in his manner of diving as does his sprightly 

 little relative the dabchick. Sometimes it is quite 

 informal — he just spears the water before disappear- 

 ing, sinking in it a little before he spears — but at 

 others there is the cormorant leap upwards as well 

 as forwards, before going down. Of course, no more 

 than with the dabchick is there the same tremendous 

 vigour, the wonderful supple virility which lives in 

 the leap of this strong-souled sea robber. I say 

 "of course," for anyone who has watched these birds 

 — the most ornamental, perhaps, of any except swans 

 that swim the water — must have remarked a quiet, 

 easy, one may almost say languid, grace — something 

 suggestive of high birth, of " Lady Clara Vera de 

 L 



