A WOODCHUCK AND A GREBE 243 



chances are a hundred to one against our dis- 

 covering the motionless neck and the tiny eye 

 which rises again among the water weeds. 



This little grebe comes of a splendid line of 

 ancestors, some of which were even more spe- 

 cialised for an aquatic life. These paid the price 

 of existence along lines too narrow and vanished 

 from the earth. The grebe, however, has so far 

 stuck to a life which bids fair to allow his race 

 safety for many generations, but he is perilously 

 near the limit. Every fall he migrates far south- 

 ward, leaving his northern lakes, but if the water 

 upon which he floats should suddenly dry up, he 

 would be almost as helpless as the gasping fish; 

 for his wings are too weak to lift him from the 

 ground. He must needs have a long take-off, a 

 flying start, aided by vigorous paddling along the 

 surface of the water, before he can rise into the 

 air. 



Millions of years ago there lived birds built on 

 the general grebe plan and who doubtless were 

 derived from the same original stock, but which 

 lived in the great seas of that time. Far from 

 being able to migrate, every external trace of 

 ynng was gone and these great creatures, almost 

 as large as a man and with sharp teeth in their 

 beaks, must have hitched themselves like seals 

 along the edge of the beach, and perhaps laid their 

 eggs on the pebbles as do the terns to-day. 



The grebe, denied the power to rise easily and 



