THE LITTLE GREBE, OR DABCHICK 303 
with reeds or bulrushes, one may often descry, paddling about with 
undecided motion, what appears to be a miniature Duck no longer 
than aBlackbird. It does not, like the Moor-hen, swim with a jerk- 
ing movement, nor when alarmed does it half swim and half fly ina 
direct line for the nearest bank of weeds. If you are unobserved, 
it swims steadily for a short distance, then suddenly disappears, 
making no splash or noise, but slipping into the water as if its 
body were lubricated. It is diving for its food, which consists of 
water insects, molluscs, small fish and worms. As suddenly as it 
dives so 'suddenly does it reappear, most likely not far from the 
spot where you first observed it: 
A di-dapper peering through a wave, 
Who, being looked on, ducks as quickly in. 
SHAKSPEARE. 
Another short swim and it dives again ; and so it goes on, the time 
spent under the water being far in excess of that employed in taking 
breath. Advance openly or make a noise, it wastes no time in 
idle examinations or surmises of your intentions, but slips down as 
before, not, however, to reappear in the same neighbourhood. Its 
motives are different : it now seeks not food, but safety, and this it 
finds first by diving, and then by propelling itself by its wings under 
water in some direction which you cannot possibly divine ; for it 
by no means follows that it will pursue the course to which its bill 
pointed when it went down. It can alter its line of flight beneath 
the water as readily as a swallow can change its course of flight 
through the air. But wherever it may reappear, its stay is now 
instantaneous ; a trout rising at a fly is not more expeditious. You 
may even fail to detect it at all. It may have ensconced itself 
among weeds, or it may be burrowing in some subaqueous hole. 
That it has the power of remaining a long while submerged, I have 
no doubt. There is in the parish of Stamford Dingley, Berks, a 
large and beautiful spring of water, clear as crystal, the source of 
one of the tributaries of the Thames. I was once bending over 
the bank of this spring, with a friend, watching the water, some 
five or six feet down, as it issued from a pipe-like orifice and stirred 
the sand around like the bubbling of a cauldron, when there sud- 
denly passed between us and the object we were examining a form 
so strange that we were at first doubtful to what class of animals 
we should refer it. In reality, it was a Dabchick, which, alarmed 
probably by the noise of our conversation, was making for a place 
of safety. As it passed within two or three feet of our faces, we 
could distinctly see that it propelled itself by its wings; but it 
appeared not to have observed us, for it kept on in a direct course 
towards the head of the spring. We searched long in the hope 
of discovering it again, but failed; and as there were no weeds 
among which it could possibly hide above water, and we could 
examine the bottom of the spring almost as thoroughly as if it 
