154 The Bird 
deserve notice. In their variety they rival the methods 
of man himself, and we find many analogies between the 
two. Penguins earn their food with perhaps the hardest 
work, as they follow the fast-swimming fish of the open 
ocean in their own icy element and capture them not- 
withstanding their speed and quick turns. 
We must not forget the slim, evil-looking snake- 
birds of the tropical swamps, which also dart through 
the water, but impale their victims on their needle-pointed 
beaks, suggesting the fish-spears of mankind. Cormo- 
rants and sheldrakes also dive after the fish on which 
they feed. 
Next in the list of strenuous seekers after fish we 
must mention the osprey, which hovers on slowly vibrat- 
ing wings, treading the air, as it were, over some favourite 
spot, until a finny back shows itself near the surface, 
when, giving itself to gravitation, the bird drops like a 
plummet. It seizes its prey in its talons, while our com- 
mon kingfisher, after watching patiently from some 
branch overhanging the water, uses its bill to capture 
the fish. Terns dive for their fish, gulls usually snatch 
them from the surface, and skuas and jaegers get theirs 
at second hand, stealing fish from the more skilful fishers 
of the sea. When schools of mullet leap in frantic fear 
from the water to escape the attacks of porpoises, or 
when the dolphins force the flying-fish above the surface, 
the merciless Frigate-bird has but to pick and choose. 
Certain cormorants are the analogues of man’s gill-nets, 
a flock of these birds surrounding a school of fish in a 
half-circle and driving them ashore or into shallow water. 
