152 BIRD WATCHING 



in other respects owing to its habit of laying its eggs 

 on otherwise inaccessible ledges of the rock. 



When three or four razorbills are swimming 

 together, it is common for one of them to dive first, 

 and for the rest to follow in quick succession, some- 

 times so quick that the order in which they go down, 

 and the succession itself, can only just be followed. 

 They must keep together under the water as well as 

 above it, since they will often emerge so, after some 

 time, and at a considerable distance. 



The guillemot dives more or less like the razor- 

 bill, but I have not been successful in tracing him 

 under the water. 



There remains the puffin. "I have been able to 

 follow the puffin downwards in its dive, and at once 

 noticed that the legs, instead of being used, were 

 trailed behind, as in flight, so that the bird's motion 

 was a genuine flight through water, unassisted by the 

 webbed feet. With the razorbill, I was not able to 

 make this out so clearly, for the legs are black, and 

 the eye cannot detect them under the water, as it can 

 the bright vermilion ones of the puffin (one wonders, 

 by the way, if the latter play any part under water such 

 as the white tail of the rabbit is supposed to do on land), 

 though I could see that just in diving they were brought 

 together and raised, so as to extend backwards in the 

 same way. Penguins also trail the legs like this in 

 diving, only giving an occasional paddle with them, 

 whilst the wings are in constant motion." 



It would seem, therefore, that those diving birds 

 which swim with their wings under the water only 

 use their feet in a minor degree, and that they go 

 down with a quick, sudden duck, or bob, and in the 



