130 LOVES MEINIE. 



It is easy to understand how the properly 

 so-called divers can plunge with impetus to 

 great depths, or keep themselves at the 

 bottom by continued strokes of the webbed 

 feet ; but neither how the ouzel walks at the 

 bottom, if it be specifically hghter than the 

 water, nor how a bird can swim horizontally 

 under the surface ; at least it is not enough 

 explained that the action must be always that 

 of oblique diving, the bird regulating the 

 stroke according to the upward pressure of 

 the water at different depths. 



109. But there are many other points need- 

 ing elucidation. It is said (and beautifully 

 insisted on, by Michelet,) that great spaces in 

 the bones of birds that pass most of their lives 

 in flight are filled with air : presumably the 

 bones of the divers are made comparatively 

 solid, or it is even conceivable — if conceptions 

 or suppositions were of an}-- use, — that the 

 deep divers ma}^ take in water, to help them- 

 selves to sink. The enormous depths at 

 which they have been caught, according to 

 report, cannot be reached by any mere effort 

 of strength, if the body remained as buoyant 

 as it evidently is on the surface. The 



