THE LITTLE GREBE, OR DABCHICK 303 



with reeds or bulrushes, one may often descry, paddling about with 

 undecided motion, what appears to be a miniature Duck no longer 

 than a Blackbird. It does not, like the Moor-hen, swim with a jerk- 

 ing movement, nor when alarmed does it half swim and half fly in a 

 direct line for the nearest bank of weeds. If you are unobserved, 

 it swims steadily for a short distance, then suddenly disappears, 

 making no splash or noise, but slipping into the water as if its 

 body were lubricated. It is diving for its food, which consists of 

 water insects, molluscs, small fish and worms. As suddenly as it 

 dives so "suddenly does it reappear, most likely not far from the 

 spot where you first observed it : 



A di-dapper peering through a wave, 

 Who, being looked on, ducks as quickly in. 



Shakspeare. 



Another short swim and it dives again ; and so it goes on, the time 

 spent under the water being far in excess of that employed in taking 

 breath. Advance openly or make a noise, it wastes no time in 

 idle examinations or surmises of your intentions, but slips down as 

 before, not, however, to reappear in the same neighbourhood. Its 

 motives are different : it now seeks not food, but safety, and this it 

 finds first by diving, and then by propelling itself by its wings under 

 water in some direction which you cannot possibly divine ; for it 

 by no means follows that it will pursue the course to which its bill 

 pointed when it went down. It can alter its line of flight beneath 

 the water as readily as a swallow can change its course of flight 

 through the air. But wherever it may reappear, its stay is now 

 instantaneous ; a trout rising at a fly is not more expeditious. You 

 may even fail to detect it at all. It may have ensconced itself 

 among weeds, or it may be burrowing in some subaqueous hole. 

 That it has the power of remaining a long while submerged, I have 

 no doubt. There is in the parish of Stamford Dingley, Berks, a 

 large and beautiful spring of water, clear as crystal, the source of 

 one of the tributaries of the Thames. I was once bending over 

 the bank of this spring, with a friend, watching the water, some 

 five or six feet down, as it issued from a pipe-like orifice and stirred 

 the sand around like the bubbling of a cauldron, when there sud- 

 denly passed between us and the object we were examining a form 

 so strange that we were at first doubtful to what class of animals 

 we should refer it. In reality, it was a Dabchick, which, alarmed 

 probably by the noise of our conversation, was making for a place 

 of safety. As it passed within two or three feet of our faces, we 

 could distinctly see that it propelled itself by its wings ; but it 

 appeared not to have observed us, for it kept on in a direct course 

 towards the head of the spring. We searched long in the hope 

 of discovering it again, but failed ; and as there were no weeds 

 among which it could possibly hide above water, and we could 

 examine the bottom of the spring almost as thoroughly as if it 



