SHAPT ER TX 
DUCKS AND DIVERS 
HE red-throated diver moves softly upon the 
gentle play of the ripples, seeming, rather, to 
float with the tide than to swim, for there is no 
defined swimming action. When it turns and goes 
the other way, it meets the opposing motion—the 
little dance of the sea—as if it were a ripple itself, 
assuming the shape of a bird. This shape is a grace- 
ful one, something between that of a grebe and a 
guillemot. One might say that a guillemot had been 
sent to a finishing-school and had very much profited 
by it; but this is not to imply that the grebe—I am 
thinking of Podiceps Cristatus—is slighted in the com- 
parison—no bird that swims need think itself so. 
Much there is grebe-like in manner and action, and in 
shape, except for the crest. By the want of this, the 
bird, I think, rather gains than loses to the human 
eye, for handsome as the grebe’s crest is, the delicate 
curve of head and neck is interrupted by it, and the 
effect is rather bizarre than beautiful—it loses some- 
thing in purity, that beauty of the undraped statue, to 
which Cicero compares the style of Cesar. The neck 
of the red-throated diver offers a wonderful example 
of delicate yet effective ornament. Down the back of 
it, and encroaching a little upon either side, run thin 
longitudinal stripes of alternate black and white, so 
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