streams, keep a look-out for two very remarkable divers — 

 the great crested grebe and the dabchick. Both float low 

 in the water, and may be identified at once from the fact 

 that they have no tail. The great crested grebe has a con- 

 spicuous dark chestnut-red frill round his neck, which can 

 be set out like an Elizabethan ruff at will, though this is 

 rarely done save in the courting season. The dabchick is a 

 small bird — ^rather smaller than a pigeon — ^and has no erectile 

 ornaments. The " grebe-flight " is shown in the coloured 

 drawings, and it has further been already described. They 

 will vanish beneath the water with startling suddenness, 

 and remain below for a surprising length of time ; emerging 

 at last far from the spot at which the dive was taken. 



One of the commonest birds of the countryside is the 

 ring-dove, or woodpigeon. He is the largest of our pigeons, 

 and may further be distinguished by the white half-ring 

 round his neck. His flight scarcely needs to be described, 

 for it differs in no essentials from the pigeons of oiu: dove- 

 cotes. His courtship flight has already Tjeen described here. 

 The stock-dove is not quite so conspicuous, but may be readily 

 distinguished from the fact that the neck has no white patch, 

 while the outspread wings are marked by an imperfect bar 

 of black. It is a bird, by the way, which shows a strange 

 diversity of taste in the selection of the site for its nursery — a, 

 rabbit-burrow, a hole in a tree, an old squirrel's drey, or the 



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