3IO BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



birds' care of their young, but there was one matter 

 which I had yet to learn. I had, indeed, already 

 had a hint of it, with the last pair of birds, besides 

 that it seemed to me, on general principles, to be 

 likely, but the optical proof had been wanting. 

 One day, however, whilst walking quietly up the 

 stream, I met one of my pair of dabchicks — the 

 mother, as I think— swimming down it. She saw 

 me at the same time as I did her, and swam to 

 shelter, but she was not much alarmed, and bending 

 amongst the reeds till my face was only on a level 

 with their tops, I waited to see her again. Soon 

 she appeared, coming softly towards me, but seeming 

 to scrutinise the bank sharply, and, all at once, spying 

 me, down she went, with extraordinary force and 

 velocity, so that a little shower of spray — and, 

 indeed, more than spray — was flung quite high into 

 the air. I had not seen a sign of the chicks, and 

 it seemed hardly possible that they could be on her 

 back, all the time — but we shall see. Coming up, 

 after her dive, turned round the other way, she 

 swam steadily up the stream, and I soon lost her, 

 round a bend of it. In order to see her again, and 

 as a means of allaying her fears, I now climbed into 

 a willow-tree, and from here I saw her, resting, in a 

 pretty little pool of the stream. For ten minutes 

 or more, now, with the glasses full upon her, I could 

 see no sign of a chick, except, perhaps, that the 

 wings were a trifle raised — but nothing appeared 

 underneath them. All at once, however, I caught 

 something ; there was a motion, a struggUng, and 

 then a little red bill and round black head appeared, 

 thrust out between the two wings, in the dip of the 



