SECOND WEEK] October 261 



to the prairie dogs) are as unlike them in activity as they 

 are in choice of a haunt. 



What a contrast to all this is the trim feathered form 

 which we may see on the mill pond some clear morning. 

 Alert and wary, the grebe paddles slowly along, watchful 

 of every movement. If we approach too closely, it may 

 settle little by little, like a submarine opening its water 

 compartments, until nothing is visible except the head 

 with its sharp beak. Another step and the bird has van- 

 ished, swallowed up by the lake, and the chances are a 

 hundred to one against our discovering the motionless neck 

 and the tiny eye which rises again among the water weeds. 



This little grebe comes of a splendid line of ancestors, 

 some of which were even more specialised for an aquatic life. 

 These paid the price of existence along lines too narrow 

 and vanished from the earth. The grebe, however, has so 

 far stuck to a life which bids fair to allow his race safety 

 for many generations, but he is perilously near the limit. 

 Every fall he migrates far southward, leaving his northern 

 lakes, but if the water upon which he floats should sud- 

 denly dry up, he would be almost as helpless as the gasping 

 fish; for his wings are too weak to lift him from the ground. 

 He must needs have a long take-off, a flying start, aided 

 by vigorous paddling along the surface of the water, before 

 he can rise into the air. 



Millions of years ago there lived birds built on the 

 general grebe plan and who doubtless were derived from 

 the same original stock, but which lived in the great seas 

 of that time. Far from being able to migrate, every exter- 

 nal trace of wing was gone and these great creatures, 



