36 Beebe, The Early Life of Loon Chicks. [ ^ 



August S. — Chick No. 2 is in difficulty, and I have to roll him 

 out of his shell. When first exposed to the world, every down 

 plume is sheathed in a very fine, hair-like wrapping of tissue, remind- 

 ing one of the covering of a porcupine or of a week-old kingfisher. 

 In about an hour's time these wrappings begin to split at the tips 

 and at the end of three hours the bird seems covered with tiny, 

 palm-like down, with long, stem-like trunks and fluffy, expanded 

 tips. The chick is very restless and frequently rolls over on his 

 back, regaining his normal position only after a scramble. All 

 this action hastens the unsheathing of the down, the protecting 

 tissue covering the chick with a fine dust, myriads of shreds flying 

 off as one flicks the plumage. 



Chick No. 2 preens his feathers before being put into water and 

 this instinctive action aids not a little in ridding the down of the 

 sheaths. 



Chick No. 1, now two days old, is strong and apparently in 

 excellent health. He is covered with a short, dense down, sooty 

 brown in color, interspersed with a coat of long, black, filoplume- 

 like down. The lower breast, the belly and the entire under sur- 

 face of the wings are white. In appearance the down is remark- 

 ably like the fur of a beaver or otter, when wet as when dry. 



The chick weighs four ounces. The length of the oilmen is 

 14 mm., depth of the two mandibles at the rear edge of nostril, 

 10 mm.; at tip of mandibles, 4 mm. The length of the body when 

 swimming is about 5 inches, ami from the tip of the beak to the 

 back of the head, 50 mm. The great difference between the size 

 of the wing and leg is shown in a comparison of the measure- 

 ments of the two organs; the wing 30 mm., and the tarsus to end 

 of longest toe, 65 mm. 



A typical short down boars a close resemblance to that of a thrush; 

 a thick short calamus, giving rise to sixteen branches, rather thickly 

 set with eilia, an average branch having upwards of two hundred. 

 The longer branches are about 20 mm. in length. 



When I partly support the body of the chick, it waddles along 

 very readily over the surface of the table. When its head is sud- 

 denly immersed in a tumbler of water, its feet and legs instantly 

 respond, moving so rapidly with simultaneous swimming strokes, 

 that they become almost a blur. The arc of motion is almost at 



