BIRDS UNDER WATER 147 



off the ice-crust of the edge, and singing 

 every now and then, for he is one of our few 

 winter-singers ; as long as the stream runs 

 he can always pick up some sort of a living 

 and keep cheerful. 



The rest of the diving birds generally rely 

 on their legs rather than their wings for 

 travelling under water as well as on the sur- 

 face, and they are rather different in shape, 

 having longer necks than the birds which use 

 their wings as paddles, and bigger feet, as one 

 would expect, while their wings are generally 

 so arranged as to pack into a very small space, 

 and not leave the points of the quills sticking 

 out to be in the way. Among these we find 

 the most thorough water-birds of any, the 

 grebes and divers. Penguins and auks do 

 come ashore a good deal, and the auks have a 

 considerable amount of flying to do, as they 

 breed high up on cliffs, but grebes and divers 

 are hardly ever out of water ; they have to 

 fly now and then, but as to going ashore, 

 they avoid that so much that some people 

 have said they cannot even walk or stand. 

 This is not right, but the bigger kinds are 

 very clumsy, especially the divers, which often 



