THE WATERHEN 595 



to dive, but may also take flight. 1 If taken by surprise on the water, 

 it will either take flight or dive ; if on land, it will run or fly. On 

 diving it swims under water, using its wings and legs. The wings are 

 held parallel to the body, and each beat carries the bird a considerable 

 distance. 2 The extent to which the legs aid in this form of progres- 

 sion has yet to be ascertained : they may serve only to steer. If 

 hard pressed, the waterhen remains submerged, leaving only so much 

 of its head above as will permit it to breathe. It keeps itself in 

 position by clinging to the ground weeds or to the stems of water- 

 plants, and will remain thus till actually seized and pulled out. 

 When liberated, it has been known to dive, swim a short distance, 

 and again remain submerged as before. It will do this repeatedly. 3 

 When it begins to feel that the danger has passed, it raises first its 

 head and neck, and then the surface of the back and the tail In 

 this semi-submerged state it may remain for some time, and is able, 

 like the Ducks and the Divers, to maintain its position without 

 clinging to anything with its feet In one instance a waterhen was 

 distinctly seen, when semi-submerged, to move its feet gently in the 

 water in order to resist the current and keep itself in place. 4 How it 

 and other species are able to achieve this feat is a question that has 

 yet to be answered. 



At what age the young begin to practise concealment by 

 submergence is not recorded. They dive at an early age. They 

 have been seen when only a few days old to leave the nest on which 

 they were resting and sink quietly beneath the surface. 5 The little 

 waterhens already alluded to, which were hatched in an incubator and 

 kept in captivity by Professor Lloyd Morgan, could not be induced by 

 any means to dive. Later one of them was taken to a stream and set 

 free. One day, in the ninth week of its life, as it was swimming in 



1 Stevenson, Birds of Norfolk, ii. 417 ; Zoologist, 1844, p. 497 (J. C. Atkinson). 



* Field, 1906, vol. crii. p. 148. W. Farren, in lift. 



4 Zoologist, 1845, p. 877. In this and the following the subject of the submergence of the 

 waterhen is dealt with in great detail : Zool., 1844, pp. 497, 668, 756; 1846, pp. 1326, 1396. 



5 T. A. Coward, Fauna of Cheshire, i. 371. 



