THE BRITISH PELICAN 77 



on catching sight of a fish directly beneath him in the 

 water, he is able instantly to check his course, get 

 into position and fall just at the right spot. One 

 would suppose that he could not do it, that the im- 

 petus of so heavy a body moving swiftly through the 

 air would carry him many yards beyond the spot, and 

 that he would have to return and search again. 

 He does not, in fact, bring himself to a sudden stop 

 as the small light kestrel is able to do, nor does he, I 

 think, keep the fish all the time in his eye, but he is 

 nevertheless able to accomplish his purpose, and in 

 this way : The instant a fish is detected the bird 

 shoots up a distance of a dozen to twenty feet ; thus 

 the swift motion is not arrested, but its direction 

 changed from horizontal to vertical, and this is prob- 

 ably brought about by a lightning-quick change in the 

 set of the wing feathers ; but it is a change which the 

 eye cannot detect, even with the aid of the most 

 powerful binocular. The upward movement is not 

 exactly vertical ; it describes a slight curve, and, at 

 the top, when the impetus which carried him up has 

 spent itself, the bird wheels round, turning half over 

 and bringing his head down, pointing to the sea. I 

 suppose that he then quickly recovers the fish he had 

 lost sight of for a moment, for with a pause of scarcely 

 a second he then closes his wings and lets himself fall. 

 On this calm, bright day, with scores of birds in 

 sight, I was well able to observe this beautiful aerial 

 manoeuvre a sort of looping the loop, and seemingly 

 an almost impossible feat which they yet accomplish 

 with such apparent ease. 



