IN THE NORTH OF KENT 77 
dibbling and dabbling in the mud, or swimming 
about in the reeds in their pretty little way. 
The manner in which a duck suddenly fright- 
ened can conceal itself was well illustrated 
just after this. We came all at once upon 
one of them in a narrow ditch of open water 
without reeds or weeds of any kind on the 
surface. It dived at once, and we never saw 
it again, though we waited quite five minutes, 
expecting to see it reappear. Nor was the 
water ruffled anywhere, though it was not 
more than two feet deep. The bird dives at 
once to the bottom, and gets away cleverly 
along it, leaving no traces of its whereabouts 
except perhaps a few tell-tale bubbles in 
the direction in which it has gone, which are 
caused by the gases it has disturbed from 
the bottom rising to the surface. The bird 
does not come to the top till many yards 
away, and then rises under a clump of weeds 
or in reeds (like moorhen, p. 49), and is thus 
quite lost to view, and so baffles pursuit. 
How long a duck or a moorhen can remain 
under water I do not know. 
