43 



Mr. Brooking's experience indicates how ducks and grebes 

 are able to conceal themselves among water plants and main- 

 tain their position motionless with the bill just above the 

 surface for breathing purposes. Major Allan Brooks, Okanagan 

 Landing, British Columbia, relates experiences that seem to 

 indicate that ducklings cling to the bottom with their feet: 



Young ducks (downies) can repose on the bottom without any effort. 

 I don't know if adults can, but I have several times seen Mallards 

 a few days old dive and sit, not lie, on the bottom in a foot of water 

 or more. Once this happened on inundated pasture, and I could see 



Male. 



SCAUP (Marila marila). 



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

 Another bird which, when wounded, sometimes dives, clings and dies under water. 



the little chaps sitting on the close-cropped turf with their eyes open 

 in perfectly natural attitudes. When I waded in and picked one up it 

 swam away on being liberated and did not attempt to hide or dive again. 



Mr. Paul J. Fair of the United States Forestry service, San 

 Francisco, California, found a dead Shoveller apparently cling- 

 ing with its feet to weeds beneath the surface, but he is not 

 positive that the feet might not have been entangled in some 

 way. Mr. H. B. Steele, Jr., of Chicago tells of a Loon that was 



