THE ANGLER'S SOUVENIR. 



219 



n 



seen them rise to the surface to obtain air, which 

 they do exactly like a grebe, merely raising the tip 

 of the bill out of the water. 



"The bird has several modes of diving : when 

 seeking food, it generally goes down like most 

 divers head-foremost, in an oblique direction, or 

 else walks deliberately in from the shallow edge of 

 the pool, the head bent down, and the knees (tarsal 

 articulation) crouched. When seeking refuge, how- 

 ever, it sometimes sinks like a stone, exactly as the 

 great northern diver, C. glacialis, has been observed 

 to do ; that is, gradually, the top of the head the 

 last part submerged, without any apparent exer- 

 tion ; sometimes in the midst of its most rapid 

 flight dropping down suddenly into the water like 

 a plummet. Its course is indifferently with or 

 across the stream, rarely against it. 



"It often remains imder water, totally submerged, 

 for fifty seconds or upwards, and during that time , 

 will proceed from ten to twenty yards. When it \ 

 comes out, the water may be seen running rapidly 

 off its plumage. It swims with great rapidity, and |V 



appears to rejoice in the water as its true element ; \{P 



\- 

 hardly ever alighting directly on a rock, but, even tf 



after its longest flight, splashing slap into the water 



at the base of a stone selected as a resting-place, 



and then scrambling to the summit of this. In 



its motion in the water it more closely resembles I 



j the jackass penguin of Cape Horn (Apt. chryso- 



, coma) than any other aquatic bird I have had an 



r\, 



c > 



