FISHING BIRDS. 359 



crest similarly formed, but smaller, and reddish brown, the 

 dark spot dusky, the chin and throat white, a pale brown 

 collar round the neck, the shoulders and breast pale brown 

 and white ; those parts which are black in the male dark 

 ash, and the feet pale blue. The young males are like the 

 female, which has occasioned the same mistakes as in the rest 

 of the genus. 



FISHING BIRDS. 



The birds included in this division are not the only ones 

 that fish for the heron and many of the divers, some of the 

 swimming ducks, and also many of the birds that remain to 

 be noticed in the following division, fish occasionally or 

 habitually. But the birds of this division fish in a peculiar 

 manner, have feet of a peculiar structure, and bear nearly the 

 same relation to the other birds that feed in the waters, that 

 the eagles do to other birds that feed upon land. 



There is no display in the manner of the diving and dab- 

 bling birds ; they remain quiet on the surface or hidden 

 under it, while in search of their food; they retire to 

 marshes and places which are not easily examined, and have 

 little of interest in them, and there they disperse themselves 

 to breed ; the are in the air only while they are journeying ; 

 and they journey with us only at those seasons when, to 

 common observers, the places which they frequent are the 

 least inviting ; hence their history is comparatively brief and 

 obscure : and though their manners deserve attention, they 

 do not eminently command it. 



The birds of the present division are tenants of the rock ; 

 they congregate in vast numbers in nesting time, breed in 

 the free air of heaven, and make the shores echo far and wide 

 with the rustling of their wings and the clamour of their 

 cries. They do not in all cases build so high upon the cliffs 



