LOCOMOTION. 959 
another of those admirable examples of Divine or- 
dinance, which are everywhere before our eyes, 
without our taking the trouble of employing a 
thought on the subject.”* 
M. Montbeillard says of one species of the dip- 
per (Cat-marin), that 1t can only walk on the sur- 
face of the waves, and his intelligent correspondent 
M. Baillon, of Montreuil, says he one day found two 
of these divers cast ashore by the tide, lying on the 
sand, working their feet and wings, and crawling 
with difficulty, so that he gathered them like stones, 
though they were not hurt nor weakly; for upon 
throwing up one of them, it flew away, and dived, 
and played on the water, as if rejoiced at regaining 
its proper element. 
The coot (Fulica atra), like the divers, has an 
aversion to take wing, and can seldom be sprung in 
its retreat at low water; yet though it walks rather 
awkwardly, it contrives to skulk through the grass 
and reeds with considerable quickness, the com- 
pressed form of its body being peculiarly fitted for - 
this purpose; and we have often marked its prog- 
ress by the top of the herbage, on the edge of a 
lake, moving as if it had been swept by a narrow 
current of wind. The same aversion to run rather 
than to take wing may also be remarked in the rails 
(Rallide, Leacn), some of which are landbirds, and 
among these we may mention the landrail or corn- 
crake (Ortygometra crex, FLemine), a bird that has 
been said never to take the water, and keeps regu- 
larly upon the ground, taking flight but rarely, and 
never except when compelled thereto. 
“We may know,” says M. Montbeillard, “ when 
a dog lights on the scent of the corncrake from his 
keen search, his number of false tracks, and the 
obstinacy with which the bird persists in keeping 
the ground, insomuch that it may be sometimes 
* Letters, p. 217. 
