242 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. viii. 



the water, I took it down to a marsh near the river bank, 

 and put it into a small shallow ]30ol. Instead of diving, as 

 my experience of the adult bird had led me to expect that 

 it would do, it promptly turned ashore, landed, and set off 

 across the mud at a pace that gave me some trouble to catch 

 it, encumbered as I was with a camera and wading-boots. 

 The bird did not move in an upright position as a dabchick 

 does on shore, but propelled itself along on its breast by rapid 

 jerks with its legs, assisted m a lesser degree by the wings. 

 Each time that it was placed m the water it crawled ashore 

 at once, and when, to test its powers of movement, I followed 

 without touching it, it crossed a strij) of mud thirty feet 

 wide without difficulty. Mr. A. Trevor-Battye, writing of the 

 young of this species, says : "A bird in down was brought 

 me by a Samoyede, who declared that it ran out on to the 

 ground when pressed. If it had not been told me by a man 

 whose word I had the strongest reason to trust, I should not 

 have quoted the statement." {Icebound on Kolguev, p. 440.) 



That the yomig of a species should possess activities not 

 known in the adult is not surjorising, as, for instance, the 

 fiedgHngs of Stints if pressed can take to the water and swim 

 like Phalaropes ; but I spent some time in watching the 

 Red-throated Diver, which was common in the district, and 

 was quite at a loss to see how the young, before they were 

 able to fly, reached the river, which in some cases was a 

 considerable distance from the pools where they were hatched. 

 I wondered whether the activity of the chicks out of water 

 was not due merely to accident, but was of positive use 

 to them. Towards the end of August, a flapper only half- 

 feathered appeared m the river. It certainly was not hatched 

 on the bank, for I had patrolled every inch of it for two or 

 three versts round, but I am pretty sure that it was the 

 nest-feUow of the bird mentioned above. Both were hatched 

 out on a marshy pool about half-a-mile from the river bank, 

 and I visited the remauiing youngster several times, until 

 about ten days later it disappeared. The pool was com- 

 pletely isolated, and although the ground was marshy all 

 the way and intersected with pools, it would have been 

 necessary, in order to reach the river, to cross considerable 

 stretches of sphagnum. The alternative is to suppose that 

 the old bird carried the young — a feat of which I do not 

 think this Diver would be capable, having regard to its 

 structural peculiarities. Maud D. HAViLAi^D. 



[Many adult birds will depart from their normal habits 

 when pressed ; thus adult Waders have frequently been seen 



