THE WINGS. 87 



water, their food consisting entirely of the fish they 

 are enahled to catch, by diving after them with 

 greater speed than the fish can swim. Here it is 

 evident, a long wide-spreading wing, like the Swift's, 

 would be very inconvenient; accordingly, in birds of 

 this tribe, we find the wings much smaller, and so 

 formed that they can be used as oars or fins, which 

 in one division of the Penguin tribe they very much 

 resemble, the short feathery covering upon them 

 having much the appearance of scales. Of the true 

 Penguins we have none in this country, but we have, 

 however, many species even in England, which live 

 on fish, having wings, if not so much like fins as 

 those of the Penguins, at least so very small, com- 

 paratively speaking, that we may refer to them, as 

 illustrations of the subject before us, we mean the 

 Divers or Grebes, one of the most beautiful of 

 which, and at the same time the most common, called 

 the crested, or eared, or tippet Grebe, from a feathery 

 ornament like a tippet and ears, weighs two pounds 



Head of the Crested Grebe. 



and a half, or nearly forty times the weight of a 

 Swift, and yet its spread of wing is only thirty 

 inches, being six inches less than twice the spread 



