66 Habit and Instinct. 



so alarmed the others that they darted out of the hole, and 

 ran and fluttered down the tunnel towards its mouth. At 

 that point a considerable pool of water had survived the 

 drought, and lay in the path of the fugitives. They did 

 not at all appear to seek it ; on the contrary, their flight 

 seemed to be as aimless as that of any other fledgling 

 would have been in the same predicament. But one of 

 them stumbled into the pool. The effect was most curious. 

 When the young bird touched the water there was a 

 moment of pause, as if the creature was surprised. Then 

 instantly there seemed to wake within it the sense of its 

 hereditary powers. Down it dived with all the facility of 

 its parents, and the action of its wings under the water 

 was a beautiful exhibition of the double adaptation to pro- 

 gression in two very different elements, which is peculiar 

 to the wings of most diving birds. The young dipper was 

 immediately lost to sight among some weeds, and so long 

 did it remain underwater that I feared it must be drowned. 

 But in due time it appeared all right, and, being re- 

 captured, was replaced in the nest." 



The hoactzin, the curious gallinaceous bird whose 

 powers of climbing have already been noticed, has when 

 young the power of swimming and diving. The nests are 

 built over the water, and when one of the little birds fell 

 into the water, Mr. Quelch observed that as soon as his 

 hand was placed close to it the hoactzin rapidly dived 

 into the dark water, in which it was impossible to see it, 

 and would rise at distances of more than a yard away. 



Mr. Hudson tells us * that he was once examining one 

 of the eggs of the jacana (Parra jacana) , lying on the palm 

 of his hand, when " all at once the cracked shell parted, 

 and at the same moment the young bird leaped from my 

 hand and fell into the water. . . . Stooping to pick it up 



* Naturalist in La Plata," p. 112. 



