DABCHICK—DAKER-HEN 131 
D 
DABCHICK or DOBCHICK, the smallest and most common 
European species of Podicipes, which has also a wide range in the 
Old World. It is the Little GrEBE of books, and the Podicipes 
Jlwiatilis or minor of modern ornithology. In most parts of Britain it 
resorts in spring to lakes or even small ponds, building there a nest 
of aquatic plants, collected in the pool it frequents, and either 
piled up from the bottom near the margin or resting on the 
growing water-weeds themselves, while use is occasionally made of 
any branch of a tree that may have fallen into the water. In 
every case the mass of materials brought together is large compared 
with the size of the bird, and is always in a moist condition, even 
to the upper part, which is slightly hollowed out in the form of a 
cup to receive the seven or eight eggs that are therein laid. These, 
as is generally the case with those of other members of the Family, 
are symmetrical in form, there being little or no difference between 
the two ends, and have a chalky shell, which from being at first of 
a pure white are soon stained by the damp weeds forming the nest, 
some of which are carefully drawn over it by the parent whenever it is 
left, and evenif she be too suddenly disturbed to make this possible, 
she will stealthily return at the first opportunity and cover them. 
Few birds have a greater faculty of escaping observation than 
this, and it often happens that a pair will frequent a small weedy 
pond, nigh unto a human habitation, and rear their young there, 
without their existence being detected, though they stay for the 
whole of a summer. Jn winter the greater part emigrate, and 
those that remain betake themselves to rivers, brooks, and ditches 
near the sea, which except in very hard frost are free from ice— 
using, as a last resort, the tidal waters. 
DACNIS, a genus established by Cuvier, with the euagipuahaie 
blue and black Motacilla cayana of ihiens <I >o 
as its type, belonging to the Cwrebidx. Four- 
teen species are recognized by Mr. Sclater : 
(Cat. B. Br. Mus. xi. pp. 18-27), and the skins Z 
of two or three of them, remarkable for their Dacnis. 
beautiful blue or bluish-green coloration, are (atten Swaluse) 
among the commonest of those sent from South America. 
DAKER-HEN, an old and widely-spread name of the Land- 
RAIL, referring, it is thought, to the unsteady flight of the bird, 
for to “dacker” (Frisian, dakkern, M. Dutch, daeckeren), signifying 
to stagger, totter, or hesitate, is a well-known word in Lincolnshire, 
