III. THE DABCHICKS. 10$ 



and. in consequence, though graceful, inclined 

 . to plumpness ; * abd though it never waddles, 

 sometimes, for a minute or two, 'toddles,' 

 and now and then looks more like a ball than 

 a birdT For the most part, being clever, they 

 are also brave, and would be as tame as any 

 other chickens, if we would let them. They 

 are mostly shore birds, living at the edge of ir- 

 regularly broken water, either streams or sea ; 

 and the representative of the whole group 

 with which we will begin is the mysterious 

 little water -ouzel, or 'oiselle,' properly the 

 water-blackbird, — Bufifon's 'merle d'eau' — for 

 ouzel is the classic and poetic word for the 

 blackbird, or ouzel-^^^>^, "so black of hue," 

 in ' Midsummer Night's Dream.' Johnson 

 gives it from the Saxon ' osle ' ; but in 

 Chaucer it must be understood simply as 

 the feminine of oiseau. The bird in question 

 might, however, be more properly called, as 

 Bewick calls it, ' water pyot,' or water magpie, 

 for only its back and wings are black, — its 

 head brown, and breast snow white. 



90. And now I must, once for all, get over a 

 difficulty in the description of birds' costume. 

 * Or in French, ' embonpoint.' 



