18 



by powerful strokes of the webbed feet and beats of the half- 

 opened wings, they flew rather than swam." He saw them 

 catch fish in this manner and lightly rise to the surface again. 1 



Dr. T. S. Palmer's observations corroborate those of Dr. 

 Coues. In the spring of 1885 he had an unusual opportunity 

 to watch the subsurface behavior of the same species in Bodega 

 Bay, California. The mode of progression, he says, with both 

 feet and wings, might be described as partly swimming and 

 partly flying, the wings being somewhat extended so that the 

 birds were able to make rapid progress. 



Goss avers that he often lay upon a railroad track at its 

 crossing of a narrow outlet to a small pond and watched the 



Winter. 



Summer. 



RED-THROATED LOON (Gavia stellata). 



(From "Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds.") 



This species, like other loons, uses both wings and feet in under-water progression. 



Loons pass and repass, invariably coming and going with the 

 tide. As they approached the outlet, "they would dive at a 

 safe distance and with the aid of their wings fly beneath its 

 surface with the speed of an arrow; making the water fairly 

 boil around them, and leaving in their wake a silvery streak of 

 bubbles." 2 



1 Coues, Elliott: Birds of the Northwest, 1874, p. 723. 



2 Goss, N. S.: History of the Birds of Kansas, 1891, p. 17. 



