DIVING DUCKS. 5 



amply repay his trouble ; if a poor man, directors of 

 museums and naturalists will often pay as much, 

 and more, for a rara avis as a good day's sport 

 would have put in his pocket. Every fowler should 

 be an observer at the least, if not a practical 

 naturalist. If he collect specimens himself, his 

 sport will be doubly interesting and instructive, 

 though his bag may be sometimes light. 



It may be remarked that in many illustrated 

 works on birds, the Divers, Grebes, and most of the 

 diving Ducks are depicted as perched on rocks. 

 Nature is thus outraged in order to show the 

 entire shape and colour of each specimen. This is 

 inexcusable in museums and private collections, 

 where such birds might easily be represented in a 

 swimming attitude. That some divers can shuffle 

 on and off a low bank, or from the nest to the 

 water, is possible ; but the picture of a Grebe 

 standing upright on land or rock, as if this were its 

 usual attitude, is absurd. A Great Crested Grebe 

 or Northern Diver, preserved in a swimming or 

 sitting posture, is handsome and natural : the same 

 bird stuck up on end, like a poodle begging, is 

 highly grotesque. Divers and Grebes, if placed 

 on land, push along on the breast, with neck out- 

 stretched, and feet shoving behind, closing and 

 expanding as if in water : notably the Great 

 Northern and Red-throated Divers, the Scaup, 

 Pochard, Goldeneye, and Tufted Duck. I have 

 kept all these in confinement and under observation, 

 and although the latter can sit upright, and even walk 

 about a little, the former will not rise off the breast. 



The Manx Shearwater cannot stand upright or 



