III. THE DABCHICKS. Ill 



But although this is clearl}'' the practical and 

 poetical division, we can't make it a scientific 

 one ; for'the dippers and dabblers are so like 

 each other that we must take them together; and 

 so also^Ke duckers and divers are inseparable 

 in some of their forms : so that, for convenience 

 of classing, we must keep to the still more 

 general rank I have given — dabchick, duck, 

 and gull, — the last being essentially the aerial 

 sea-bird, which lives on the wing. 



94. But there is 3^et one more ' mode of 

 motion ' to be thought of, in the class we are 

 now examining. Several of them ought really 

 to be described, not as dipchicks, but as trip- 

 chicks ; being, as far as I can make out, little 

 in the habit of going under water ; but much 

 in the habit of walking or tripping daintily 

 over it, on such raft or float as they may find 

 constructed for them by water-lily or other 

 buoyant leaves. Of these " come and trip it 

 as you come" chicks, — (my emendation of 

 Milton is surel}' more reasonable than the 

 emendations of commentators as a body, for 

 we do not, any of us, like to see our mistresses 

 " trip it as they^^ ") — there are, I find, pictured 

 by I\Ir. Gould, three ' species,' called by him, 



