114 THE BOOK OF MIGRATORY BIRDS 



water in shallow pools and slow-running streams, 

 emerging to the surface at a considerable distance from 

 the place where it had entered. The leg is feathered to 

 the knee, and claws are very strong and curved, the claws 

 of the back toe being the strongest. Its curious habit of 

 walking under water appears to have been first observed 

 by Hebert, whose interesting narrative will be familiar to 

 most naturalists. 



The Laplanders call the Loon (Colymbus glacialis) the 

 lame bird, because it walks awkwardly, the legs, indeed, 

 being so placed as to render it difficult to use them in 

 walking. When one under observation quitted the water 

 it shoved its body along upon the ground like a seal, by 

 jerks, rubbing the breast against the ground, and returned 

 again to the w T ater in a similar manner. 



The Coot (Fidica 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 con- 

 trives to skulk through the grass and reeds with consider- 

 able quickness, the compressed form of its body being 

 peculiarly fitted for this purpose, and its progress has 

 often been remarked 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 preference to run rather than 

 take wing may also be remarked in the Rails (Ralled<z), 

 some of which are land-birds, and amongst these may be 

 mentioned the Landrail or Corncrake (Ortygometra crex), 

 a bird that has been said never to take the water, and 

 keeps regularly upon the ground, taking flight but rarely, 

 and never except when compelled thereto. 



