LOCOMOTION. 217 



the surface at a considerable distance from the place 

 where it had entered*. Willughby, who had ob- 

 served it go under water, but had no notion of its 

 walking there, supposes it to have a portion of mem- 

 brane between the toes like swimming birds; but this 

 is not the fact, for the toes are distinctly parted 

 without any membrane. The leg besides is fea- 

 thered to the knee and the claws are very strong and 

 curved, the claws of the back toe being the strongest. 

 Its curious habit of walking under water appears to 

 have been first observed by M. Hebert, whose inte- 

 resting narrative we shall give. 



*' On the verge of the lake Nantua," says he, " I 

 lay ambushed in a hut formed of pine-branches and 

 snow, where I patiently waited till a boat, which was 

 rowing on the lake, should drive some wild ducks to 

 the water's edge. I observed without being perceived ; 

 before me was a small inlet, the bottom of which 

 gently shelved, and might be about two or three feet 

 deep in the middle. A dipper stopped here more 

 than an hour, and I had full leisure to view its pro- 

 ceedings. It entered into the water, disappeared, and 

 again emerged on the other side of the inlet which it 

 thus repeatedly forded. It traversed the whole of the 

 bottom, and seemed not to have changed its element, 

 and discovered no hesitation or reluctance in the im- 

 mersion. I perceived several times, however, that as 

 often as it waded deeper than the knee, it displayed 

 its wings, and allowed them to hang to the ground. 

 I remarked, too, that when I could discern it at the bot- 

 tom of the water, it appeared enveloped with air, which 

 gave it a brilliant surface ; like some sorts of beetles, 

 which are always in water, enclosed with a bubble of 

 air. Its view in dropping its wings on entering the 

 water might be to confine this air ; it was certainly 

 never without some, and it seemed to quiver. These 

 * J, R. 



Y 



