ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 295 



for it, she moves a little way off, and sits down again, and this 

 is twice repeated. All this time she keeps cropping the grass 

 about her, as she sits, but whether for the chicks or herself, 

 I cannot determine, for it is impossible to see whether she lets 

 it drop or swallows it — it may be either or both. Finally, how- 

 ever, the cygnets disappear beneath her plumage, and both birds 

 lie, now, asleep, or at least with their heads on their backs. 

 The Great Northern Diver is also asleep. He has been about, 

 on the water, all this time, and now floats upon it, in the same 

 attitude. 



I now rise, and, without stooping or taking any precautions, 

 walk away from them over the hill. I have not taken more 

 than two or three steps when both the heads are thrown up, 

 and the birds observing me. They cannot, therefore, it would 

 seem, be really asleep, though they had every appearance of it. 

 Certainly they seem like the proverbial weasel in this respect, 

 yet by keeping still, and never either standing or sitting upright, 

 I have been able, to watch them at quite luxurious distance for 

 the glasses. The stranger Swan has been absent now for the 

 last two hours or so. 



Harlequin Ducks are very numerous on the river. They 

 delight in the little side nooks of comparatively smooth water, 

 skirting the white, foaming torrents which here abound. Here 

 they sit sunning (or, more often, clouding) themselves upon the 

 rocks, and, when startled, will often throw themselves into the 

 white, broken water, at such places as make it seem probable 

 that they may sometimes lose their lives in this way. However, 

 like others, they draw the line somewhere, and take to the wing 

 when the turmoil is very tremendous. The pantaloon- rather 

 than harlequin-like colouring of the male Harlequin Duck 

 is extraordinary, and, from the point of view of concealing 

 coloration, " enough to make Quintilian gasp and stare," but I, 

 from the point of view of sexual selection, am more particularly 

 interested in the white false eye, as one may call it, placed 

 at about an inch from the real one. In the plate of this bird 

 given in vol. vi. of Dresser's 'Birds of Europe' (as for the 

 pagination of that work, I totally give it up) this spot is given 

 quite wrongly, both by its size and position being made quite 

 ineffective. Pains seem to have been taken (as would probably 



