I 2 8 love's meinie. 



It is pleasant to watch the parent bird feeding 

 her young : down she dives with a quick turn, 

 and presently rises again with, five times out 

 of six, a minnow, or other little fish, glittering 

 like silver in her bill. The young rush to- 

 wards the spot where the mother has come 

 up, but she does not drop the fish into the 

 water for them to receive until she has well 

 shaken it about and killed it, so that it may 

 not escape, when for the last time in its own 

 element. I have seen a young one which had 

 just seized, out of its turn I have no doubt, 

 the captured prey, chased away by her, and 

 pursued in apparent anger, as if for punish- 

 ment, the following one being willingly given 

 the next fish without an}^ demur." 



107. Mr. Gould seems to think that the 

 dabchick likes insects and fish spawn better 

 than fish, or at least more prudently dines 

 upon them. "That fish are taken we have 

 positive evidence from examples having been 

 repeatedly picked up dead by the fishermen 

 of the Thames, with a bull-head or miller's 

 thumb in their throats, and by which they 

 had evidently been choked in the act of 

 swallowing them. That it is especially fond 



