ERISMATURA LEUCOCEPHALA. 259 



however, thougli its head and the carriage o£ ts head gave it the 

 iippearance of a duck, its tail, which it carried cocked at right angles to 

 its body, and its habit of constantly diving and remaining nnder the 

 surface for a considerable time, led me to doubt if it was a duck at all. . . . 

 I determined to shoot it for the sake of identification. 



" . . . x\s I approached, a hawk came on the scene and hovered over it, 

 evidently imagining that it had found its breakfast ; and I sat down to see 

 what would happen, and in order to watch the bird more intently before 

 shooting it. AVhat did happen was that whenever the hawk poised itself 

 in the air preparatory to attacking, the duck dived in continually, and on 

 reappearing after some twenty or thirty seconds immediately disappeared 

 ngain, keeping all the time very much in the same place. 



" After some five minutes of this, the hawk went off disappointed^ and 

 I now approached nearer still. ... It was swimming very low on the 

 water : . . . its tail was carried, when swimming, always at a right ano-le 

 to its body ; . . . when it dived^ the tail was straightened out, and then 

 appeared much longer. . . . It would not rise as I came nearer, but merely 

 swam awa}^ from me, diving every now and then. 



'• In this tank Major Barton procured a male, in December 1901, of 

 Avhich he remarks : ' It came up several times, only showing its head and 

 neck, the body and tail remaining under water.' " 



These brief notes agree well with what has been written on the bird as 

 it shows itself in Europe. From this it would appear that, whilst the bird is 

 ••i wonderful swimmer and diver, it is almost helpless on land, and though of 

 very quick flight it is very loath to take to wing, not rising until absolutely 

 forced to do so, and then only flying for a very short distance, after which 

 it resettles, and is then harder than ever to again get off the water. 



It has, according to Xaumann, the power of swimming- in the water 

 with only head and neck projecting, in the same manner as the birds of 

 the genus Plotus and the Cormorants do. 



Most authors agree that it swims with its tail upright, as observed by 

 Finn, Chill, Field, and others in India ; but Chapman and Buck, in their 

 ' Wild Spain,' give quite a different description : — 



"The most extraordinary wild fowl we ever met with — gambollino- 

 and splashing about on the water, chasing each other, now above, now 

 beneath its surface, like a school of porpoises ; they appear half birds, 

 half water-tortoises. . . . Presently the strangers entered a small reed- 

 inargined bight, swimming very deep, only their turtle-shaped backs and 

 heavy heads in sight; . . . with small wings like a Grebe, and long stiff 



s2 



