WINGS AND FEET 
however, scramble away under water, using 
both feet and wings. 
Cormorants are famed for their ability to 
swim under water with great swiftness, and 
domesticated ones are used at the present day 
by the Chinese as catchers of fish, while a ring 
around the neck prevents the bird from profiting 
by its labours. Both when confined in tanks 
and wild in the sea this curious bird uses its 
feet alone for propulsion. Selous! says of 
these birds: ‘‘ Others, whose young were still 
with them on the nest, although full fledged 
and almost as big as themselves, plunged, 
attended by these into the water... . It 
was easy to follow these birds as they swam 
midway between the surface of the water and 
the white pebbled floor of the cavern, and I 
am thus able to confirm my previous con- 
viction that the feet alone are used by them in 
swimming, without any help from the wings, 
which are kept all the while closed.’ The 
American coot or mud-hen, a bird of the 
rail family, is a graceful diver, and, like the 
cormorant, it keeps its wings close to the 
*The bird Watcher in the Shetlands. London. 1905. 
p. 50. 
195 
