DABCHICK. 125 



swim about with their parents to be fed, diving also with 

 innate readiness. 



I have only seen these little things fly close over the 

 water, with trailing legs, dappling the surface as they have 

 gone along. They have however been observed flying at a 

 height of from six to ten feet. Their flight is tolerably 

 rapid. It is on and below the surface of the water, however, 

 that they are most at ease, and every movement is charac- 

 terized by the most consummate dexterity and facile quickness 

 and agility: the most expert waterman that skulls his skiff 

 on the Thames or the Isis, is but an humble and unskilful 

 imitator of the Dabchick. In moving straightforward the 

 wings are used to aid their progress, as if in the air, and 

 in turning 'it has an easy gliding motion, feet and wings 

 being used as occasion requires, sometimes on one side and 

 sometimes on the other.' This species walks but indifferently, 

 as may readily be imagined from the position of the legs, 

 so very far back. 



It is pleasant to watch the parent bird feeding her young. 

 Down she dives with a quick turn, "and presently rises 

 again with, five times out of six, a minnow or other little 

 fish, glittering like silver in her bill. The young rush 

 towards the spot where the mother has come up, but she 

 does not drop the fish into the water for them to receive, 

 until she has well shaken it about and killed it, so that it 

 may not escape, when for the last time in its own element. 

 I have seen a young one, which had just seized, out of its 

 turn I have no doubt, the captured prey, chased away by 

 her, and pursued in apparent anger, as if for punishment, 

 the following one being willingly given the next fish without 

 any demur. I have noticed the old bird feeding the young 

 one so late as the 14th. of September. Small fish or young 

 fry comprise their ordinary food, together with shrimps and 

 marine insects, when sojourning for a while by the sea. 

 Plants are also made use of, and some of the feathers of 

 the bird itself are swallowed. A Dabchick was found dead 

 at Witchingham, in Norfolk, apparently choked by a bull- 

 head fish, which it had been swallowing, the spines being 

 seen sticking in its throat. Other similar instances have 

 very often occurred. 



The note of this interesting species is a lively, pretty, and 

 sonorous, though somewhat shrill, chirruping, quickly repeated. 

 It is uttered when on the wing in the spring, as well as 



