12 
NATURE NOTES 
whatever, one is driven to the conclusion there is some mysterious power 
possessed by it that is not dreamt of in our philosophy. 
The case of the fish cited by my brother is not parallel. “ Floating ” fish, 
such as trout or mackerel, bulk for bulk, are much the same weight as water, 
and can rise or sink without the aid of their fins by inflating or contracting the 
air-bladder. Birds have not this power. They cannot admit into their bodies 
a sufficient amount of water (three times their own weight) to redress the in- 
equality ; nor can they increase their specific gravity by reducing their size. 
H. Giitke, the author of “ Heligoland,” is no ordinary observer. The cases 
he cites of the cormorant and the dabchick immersing themselves in a still pond, 
to which I referred in “ How do they do it ? ” are hard to refute, and only to be 
got away from by denying his facts or questioning his accuracy. In confirmation 
of what Gatke says let me add some observations of my own. 
For nineteen years I lived at the head of Langstone Harbour, where there 
were many cormorants. These birds may frequently be seen apparently motion- 
less in the water, with their heads only above the surface. As, however, it was 
impossible to approach them sufficiently close in the open to be certain that they 
were quite motionless and that there was no current, nothing beyond a strong 
suspicion that they were capable of remaining still when immersed in still water 
could be entertained. 
One spring I came across some young moorhens in a swamp where there was 
no cover. In the swamp there was a narrow gully with water a foot or eighteen 
inches deep. In trying to escape the birds dived into the clear water, which was 
without eddy or current. There were no weeds or stones, and I caught one or two 
of them as they lay motionless on the smooth muddy bottom with outstretched legs 
without disturbing the mud in any way. Had I killed them and placed them in 
the water no ingenuity short of using a weight or fixing them in the mud would 
have prevented their bodies from floating, as would the carcases of any other 
freshly-killed diving birds. This shows there is some strange power in the living 
bird which deserts it when dead. 
On another occasion I surprised some moorhens in a deep pond in the nriddle 
of a field. To this pond there was neither outlet nor inlet ; there could be no 
“ eddies or currents,” and there were no weeds ; but there was a trunk of a fallen 
tree against which one of them, by way of escaping observation, took refuge 
with its head alone above the water. I was directly over the bird, and watched 
it critically with the set purpose of trying to discover how its position was main- 
tained. The space round it could be clearly seen, and contact between the tree 
and its plumage was no more than that of two croquet balls, if, indeed, contact it 
could be called. The legs were still, there was no hugging the tree or attempt 
at holding on in any way. It seemed suspended in the water. The only motion 
was an occasional shake of the head, as if to free it from the water. .Such were 
the circumstances. They puzzle me : I can offer no explanation. I merely 
notify what I saw and chronicle the facts. Those who know the ways of 
diving birds will corroborate what I say, and perhaps may be able to suggest a 
solution. The more we study birds the more they seem to baffle our science. 
Buzzards have been seen to ascend 1,000 feet perpendicularly in a minute 
or so, in a dead calm, without visible motion of their outstretched wings. A 
condor searches for his food 40,000 feet, that is, between seven and eight 
miles, above sea-level, in a ratified atmosphere and degree of cold that destroy 
mammalian life. He spies a dead animal cast upon the seashore, shuts his 
wings, and in a few minutes is feasting on the carcase in the sweltering heat 
of the Tropics. A Virginian plover goes on his migratory flight, ascends to 
regions probably far higher than the condor, where there is a calm, no moisture, 
no cloud, no impenetrable daikness, and a ratified atmosphere that oilers very 
little resistance to his rapid flight of between 600 and 700 miles an hour. He 
starts one evening from Labrador and arrives next morning in Brazil, doing the 
journey on an empty stomach without stopping oti the way. Young birds go by 
themselves thousands of miles on a journey they have never been before, and 
without a guide. They arrive punctually each year at the very jilace where their 
parents will follow a month or two later. 
These arc a few of the puzzles which the study of birds presents to us. Well 
may we .say “ How do they do it ?” 
Market IVeston, Thetford. KtrMt'M) Ttios. l)AUttHNY 
