The Submerged Tenth 



surprised to find that I had secured, not a Duck, 

 but a Horned Grebe. This was my first successful 

 wing-shot from a boat, and no wonder I remem- 

 ber it. More often, under similar circumstances, it 

 has been the large fellow — ■" Ting-tang," as the 

 gunners name it — that I have observed. 



A mental picture such as the above inevitably 

 has Loons in it, as a natural part of the scene. 

 Though Grebes and Loons may not actually fiock 

 together, they have enough in common to make it 

 proper to class them alike with " the submerged 

 tenth;" and as mv thought turns toward Loons, my 

 personal acquaintance with them for over twentv 

 years unfolds itself in picturesque panorama, in two 

 main lines of ' association. One has to do with 

 wooded lakes, and a great bird floating well out on 

 the glassv surface, or exhibiting its marvellous 

 powers of swimming and diving; the other brings 

 up pictures of the sea. In one of these it is late 

 autumn. I am lying flat on my lace, peering over 

 a ridge of sand, on the Massachusetts shore just 

 below "Indian Hill," and watching a great Loon 

 floating just off the beach, not twenty yards away, 

 utterly unconscious of my presence. In another it 

 is early winter, and I am strolling along the bluffs 

 of Scituate. A number of Loons, with Ducks of 

 several sorts, are fishing out at the beginning of a 

 line of heavy breakers. A big comber is advanc- 

 ing. Surely it will overwhelm that Loon that 

 floats quietly there in its course, facing approaching 

 danger. Just as the wall of water reaches the bird, 



39 



