BIRDS UNDER WATER 149 



divers are very much alike in general shape, 

 with long necks and broad, short bodies, and 

 feet right at the very hind end, so that it is a 

 strain for them to stand up, and they look, 

 when they do walk, about as comfortable as 

 a dog on its hind legs, and fall down very 

 easily. Divers have ordinary webbed feet, 

 but grebes have each toe webbed separately, 

 which gives a very queer look to the foot. 



Both of them are fresh-water birds in the 

 nesting-season, though they go to sea more 

 or less in the winter, and the common " little 

 grebe " or dabchick, is the diver which most 

 people have the best chance of studying ; it 

 may be found on any fair-sized piece of water, 

 and nests in the London parks. It was in 

 St. James' Park last year that I had a parti- 

 cularly good chance of seeing a dabchick 

 travelling under water, as it was feeding close 

 to the bank ; it dashed along, as the birds 

 which dive with their feet always seem to do, 

 with strong strokes of both feet at once, not 

 paddling with one at a time, as birds do when 

 they swim on the top ; and the little fish it 

 was after seemed to have no idea of what 

 was coming till they were snapped up, which 



