Among the Water-Fowl 



wings. At first the poor thing goes pattering and 

 fluttering along the surface, often to fall in again, 

 exhausted by the effort. In this case, after a brief 

 rest, swimming a little for a start, it may try again, 

 or else give up and dive. It is especially hard for 

 it to rise from rough water, with breaking chop. 

 One mid-winter day off Chatham, Mass., with an 

 easterly wind and breaking sea that hurled the fish- 

 ing sloop onward, we overhauled a Horned Grebe 

 that made desperate efforts to fly. Rising, as do all 

 water-fowl, toward the wind, it would almost get 

 under way when a breaking surge would insultingly 

 slap it in the face, and knock it back into the 

 water. One large wave fairly flung it backward, 

 making the poor thing fall all in a heap. With 

 great persistency it tried five or six times, when 

 the boat had come so close that imminent danger 

 compelled it to abandon the fruitless attempt and 

 dive. 



Some few of the Horned Grebes, and more of 

 the Holboell's, remain all winter on the New 

 England coast, and in the spring visit the ponds 

 again, the larger kind as soon as the ice is gone, in 

 March. Both of these follow the coast-line in 

 autumn in flocks, at the same time as the migratory 

 ducks. The first time I ever anchored in a " coot- 

 ing line " — off Scituate it was — I soon saw to the 

 north a rapidly approaching file of small, white- 

 winged fowl. As they passed close to my boat at 

 the rate of over a mile a minute, I sent two shots 

 singing after them. One bird left the line, and 

 went ricochetting over the water for many a rod. 

 Rowing from the mooring to pick it up, I was 



38 



