534 COLYMBIM;. 



or make a noise, it wastes no time in idle examinations or 

 surmises of your intentions, but slips down as before, not, 

 however, to reappear in the same neighbourhood. Its 

 motives are different: it now seeks not food, but safety, 

 and this it finds first by diving, and then by propelling 

 itself by its wings under water in some direction which 

 you cannot possibly divine ; for it by no means follows 

 that it will pursue the course to which its bill pointed 

 when it went down. It can alter its line of flight beneath 

 the water as readily as a swallow can change its course 

 of flight through the air. But wherever it may reappear, 

 its stay is now instantaneous ; a trout rising at a fly is 

 not more expeditious. You may even fail to detect it 

 at all. It may have ensconced itself among weeds, or it 

 may be burrowing in some subaqueous hole. That it has 

 the power of remaining a long while submersed, I have 

 no doubt. There is in the parish of Stamford Dingley, 

 Berks, a large and beautiful spring of water, clear as crystal, 

 the source of one of the tributaries of the Thames. I was 

 once bending over the bank of this spring, with a friend, 

 watching the water, some five or six feet down, as it issued 

 from a pipe-like orifice and stirred the sand around like 

 the bubbling of a cauldron, when there suddenly passed 

 between us and the object we were examining a form 

 so strange that we were at first doubtful to what class of 

 animals we should refer it. In reality, it was a Dabchick, 

 which, alarmed probably by the noise of our conversation, 

 was making for a place of safety. As it passed within 

 two or three feet of our faces, we could distinctly see that 

 it propelled itself by its wings ; but it appeared not to have 

 observed us, for it kept on in a direct course towards the 

 head of the spring. We searched long in the hope of dis- 

 covering it again, but failed ; and as there were no weeds 

 among which it could possibly hide above water, and 

 we could examine the bottom of the spring almost as 

 thoroughly as if it contained air only, we could but conclude 



