152 A SUMMER ON THE YENESEI 



to complete the series. As the light was failing, I had 

 to put off the sitting until the morrow, and went to 

 bed with the foundling snuggled for warmth inside my 

 nightgown. At first he was a most uncomfortable bed- 

 fellow, poor little wretch, and cried unceasingly until he 

 had warmed his cold webbed toes against me, and then 

 he nestled down quietly enough. 



In the morning I tried to photograph him, but he 

 was a most troublesome sitter. Professor Newton ^ cites 

 the case of a young dabchick, which could not have 

 been more than twelve hours old, which crawled across 

 a table from side to side, " dragging itself forward by 

 means of its wings quite as much as propelling itself by 

 its legs." My diver easily capped this feat. With legs 

 and wings, he moved himself in rapid jerks, and crossed 

 a strip of mud thirty feet wide at a pace that gave me 

 all I could do to catch him. Whenever he was placed 

 in the water, he invariably swam ashore and crawled 

 into the grass. I am inclined to think that in very 

 early days divers are able, not only to progress on land, 

 but also make good use of that power. Otherwise it is 

 not easy to explain how it was that at Golchika they 

 were found so often upon small pools and streams at a 

 distance from where they were hatched, and how they 

 reached the river before their wings were fledged. 



The twin of my chick was reared safely. From the 

 first he was slightly bigger than his brother. It is usual 

 for one of a diver's brood to be larger than the other, 

 but I do not know whether the difference in size is due 

 to sex. He had all the care and solicitude that by 



1 Ibis, 1889, p. 577. 



