3 1 8 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 



round my land without any gun, but a favourite old spaniel 

 followed my heels. When I came near the field where I 

 wounded the bird the evening before, I heard the 

 partridges call, and seeming to be much disturbed. On my 

 approaching the bar-way, they all rose, some on my right 

 and some on my left hand ; and just before and over my 

 head I preceived (though indistinctly from the extreme 

 velocity of their motion) two birds fly directly against each 

 other, when instantly, to my great astonishment, down 

 dropped a partridge at my feet. The dog immediately 

 seized it, and on examination, I found the blood flow very 

 fast from a flesh wound in the head, but there was some 

 dry-clotted blood on its wings and side ; whence I concluded 

 that a hawk had singled out my wounded bird as the 

 object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that 

 my approach had obliged the birds to rise on the wing ; 

 but the space between the hedges was so small, and the 

 birds so instantaneous and quick, that I could not distinctly 

 observe the operation. — Markwick. 



GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON. 



As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer Forest 

 from Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncom- 

 mon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which 

 he brought home alive. On examination it proved to be 

 colymhus glacialis, Linn., the great speckled diver or 

 loon, which is most excellently described in Willughby's 

 Ornithology. 



Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably 

 adapted to its mode of life, that in no instance do we see 

 the wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage. 

 The head is sharp and smaller than the part of the neck 



