I20 BY THE SEA. 



cessful in life's race. They are born for the sea. 

 With their boat-like bodies, powerful wings and 

 paddle feet, they care not for its angry mood, and 

 actually laugh in its contorted face. It is worth 

 a journey of many miles to watch the "old salts" 

 as I do to-day ! A flock of " Scoters " are swim- 

 ming along within three hundred yards of the 

 shore, apparently under the guide of a captain. 

 They are a busy crew, and are continually diving 

 to capture the small fry beneath them. Practice 

 gives them wonderful facility and grace in per- 

 forming their "headers." Just how the bird dis- 

 appears so quickly beneath the surface is difificult 

 to explain. A tilt of the tail, a sudden dip of the 

 bill, a certain twist of the propellers, and the thing 

 is done ! Only a swirl appears on the water, 

 where the duck was an instant before. For more 

 than a minute it is out of sight, then like a sunken 

 buoy, disentangled from the submerged sea-weeds, 

 it rises without any apparent struggle for breath, 

 and rests lightly on the rocking waves. Now it 

 lifts its under parts free from the water and flaps 

 its wings to shake off the briny drops and, set- 

 tling down again, adjusts them carefully over its 

 back. Sometimes, without even the aid of the 

 wings, it raises its body and sits for a moment 

 almost uprightly on the water, as the grebes do on 

 the shore. How it does this, without the support 

 of its wings, and with only the water as a fulcrum, 



