BRITISH BIRDS. 163 



take wing from the water, or drop from an 

 eminence, and fly with great swiftness to a con- 

 siderable distance; but when they happen to alight 

 on the land, are very helpless, for they cannot 

 either rise from the flat surface of the ground, or 

 make much progress in walking upon it. On shore, 

 they sit with the body erect, commonly upon the 

 whole length of their legs, and, in attempting to 

 regain the water, they awkwardly waddle forward 

 in the same posture; and if, by any interruption, 

 they happen to fall on the belly, they sprawl with 

 their feet, and flap their short wings as if they were 

 wounded, and may easily be taken by the hand, for 

 they can make no other defence than by striking 

 violently with their sharp-pointed beak. They live 

 upon fish, and also upon fresh-water roots and sea- 

 weeds. They are commonly very fat, and heavy in 

 proportion to their size. 



They generally build their nests in the holes of 

 the rocky precipices which overhang the sea-shores ; 

 and those which breed on lakes make theirs of 

 withered reeds, rushes, &c., and fix it among the 

 growing stalks of a tuft or bush of such like her- 

 bage, close by the water's-edge. The female lays 

 from two to four eggs at one hatching. They moult 

 in autumn, but the young birds require from two to 

 three years before they assume the fixed plumage of 

 the old birds, a circumstance which has given rise 

 to the multiplication of species in the genus. The 

 sexes differ very little. The skins of these birds 

 are dressed with the feathers on, and made into 

 warm beautiful tippets and muffs: the under part 

 only is used for this purpose; and a skin of one of 

 the species sells as high as fourteen shillings. 



