352 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and it does not follow that the full clutch has been laid because some 

 or all of Xhvee or four eggs are found to be slightly incubated. In 

 October, 1902, my friend Mr. F. S. Graves showed me a Dabchick 

 which he had captured on the previous day. The bird's gait was 

 perhaps not sufficiently dignified to be described as a walk, but it 

 travelled over the floor of the room with a quick pattering run, treading 

 only on the fore-part of its toes. I have never seen a Dabchick mount 

 its nest, but the Great Crested Grebe when doing so usually walks 

 about on the floating mass whilst it removes the weeds with which it 

 had covered the eggs on leaving, and it seems not improbable that the 

 Dabchick when similarly engaged will walk sedately. When stationary, 

 Mr. Graves's bird stood erect, with the body inclined only slightly 

 forward, and the tail — if one may speak of a Grebe's tail — perhaps a 

 couple of inches from the ground ; the tarsi were clear of the ground, 

 and formed, with the toes, an angle of rather more than 90°. Alto- 

 gether the upright pose of the bird was very striking. A Dabchick 

 which I had in captivity for a few days in January, 1905, ran and 

 stood in a precisely similar way. Figures in many ornithological 

 works, and stuffed birds in most museums, represent Grebes with the 

 feet and tarsi resting on the ground ; but in Dresser's ' Birds of 

 Europe ' the Eed-necked, Black-necked, and Sclavonian Grebes are 

 figured in the erect attitude which appears to be the normal standing 

 posture of the Dabchick. When resting on land, the Dabchick lies 

 prone, the head drawn back between the shoulders, and the feet spread 

 on either side of the body at angles of about 30° with it. My captive 

 bird, when asleep, had the scapulars raised so as to conceal the neck, 

 the head being pushed under those on the left side. It then looked 

 like a ball of brown feathers. The flexibly-jointed feet are then laid 

 close alongside the wings, and clear of the ground, the tarsus being 

 reflexed against the tibia.* The Dabchick is not uncommon on the 

 Cheshire meres, and when these are frozen the birds are driven to the 

 brooks, where they can still feed. Under such circumstances their 

 actions may be studied at close quarters, and I have often watched 

 them in a broad trench which drains one of the meres in this neigh- 

 bourhood. I have never seen the wings used under water in the way 

 Mr. Dalgliesh describes ; on the contrary, they are, so far as my 

 experience goes, always held close to the bird's sides. Mr. T. A. 

 Coward, who has often watched Dabchicks both with and independently 

 of me, tells me that he has never seen the wings used under water. 

 When a Dabchick is swimming on the surface, the tarsi project on 



* Cf. R. Newstead in ' Research ' for Jan. 1st, 1889. 



