9690 Birds. 



and round, as if only using one foot, while on all sides they are 

 gliding around you because you have got into a " ball of fry," or 

 perhaps, you are cutting up fish for bait and throwing the entrails 

 overboard. In such cases they are perfectly mute, and the belief of 

 the Turks that they are the souls of the damned is almost pardonable, 

 so restless do they appear, and so intent on seeking for something that 

 they never find. 



Postscript. — After three day's cruising in Dublin Bay, I have the 

 following additional notes applicable to the foregoing paper :— Of the 

 shearwater I am tired, the bay is full of thein ; flock after flock may 

 be passed, lazily swimming, and so indolent that they may be killed 

 with an oar. I hunted several, to get one alive, but could not succeed. 

 One, hunted for upwards of a quarter of an hour, after diving and 

 fluttering four or five yards at a time, at last thought it unsafe to stay 

 longer, and, when once on wing, forgot his laziness and flew like a 

 shearwater, showing he was not incapacitated. In remarking their 

 diving I had grand opportunities. It can scarcely be termed diving, 

 being merely plunges under water; the longest dive was about eight 

 seconds. When a shoal of fry is seen near the surface the birds will 

 settle on the water, swimming with the wings lying expanded. If the 

 fry should be beneath them they will take them by diving, disappear- 

 ing and rising almost instantly ; if the fish " play " at any distance 

 from where they are swimming, they will dash along the surface with 

 wings and feet, literally flying into the water among the fish. When 

 fishing from the air, those remarkable dashes they make along the 

 surface are plunges at some prey ; many times I saw them take up 

 pieces of fish this way within oar's length of the boat, and never 

 think of alighting. Their dashing into the water does not seem to 

 impede their flight in the least, though when swimming they rise like 

 coots, very sluggishly, their long wings striking the water for a con- 

 siderable distance. When alighting to pick up a large piece of food 

 they keep the wings up like a butterfly at rest, and then can rise with 

 ease; I suppose on account of the bones and feathers being then fully 

 charged with air. Before rising, when swimming, if given lime, they 

 will expand the wings two or three times, and then rise without much 

 difficulty. The cormorant, shag and gannet will always do this, even 

 when perched on a rock. They swim badly, the breast lower than 

 the stern, and progress by jerks. I never knew these birds to seek 

 their food, when swimming deep, by diving like the true divers ; in 

 fact, from the wing is the chief way. No oil exuded from the nostrils 



