Ill, THE DABCHICKS. I 5 I 



ungainliness by its gentle and intelligent 

 mind; -and seems meant for a useful posses- 

 *sion to mankind all over the world, for it lives 

 in Siberia and New Zealand ; in Senegal 

 and Jamaica ; in Scotland, Switzerland, and 

 Prussia ; in Corfu, Crete, and Trebizond ; in 

 Canada, and at the Cape. I find no account 

 of its migrations, and one would think that a 

 bii'd which usually flies " dip, dip, dipping 

 with its toes, and leaving a track along the 

 water like that of a stone at 'ducks and 

 drakes ' " (Yarrell), would not willingly ad- 

 venture itself on the Atlantic. It must have 

 a kind of human facility in adapting itself 

 to climate, as it has human domesticity of 

 temper, with curious fineness of sagacity and 

 sympathies in taste. A family of them, petted 

 by a clergyman's wife, were constantly adding 

 materials to their nest, and " made real havoc 

 in the flower-garden, — for though straw and 

 leaves are their chief ingredients, they seem to 

 have an eye for beauty, and the old hen has 

 been seen surrounded with a brilliant wreath 

 of scarlet anemones." Thus Bishop Stanley, 

 whose account of the bird is full of interesting 

 particulars. This eesthetic water-hen, with 



