210 
ALLEN’s naturalist’s LIBRARV. 
remained there until I came up. Four days later some of 
the eggs were hatched. The birds slipped off the nest on my 
approach, but remained among the rushes close by. I waited 
a few minutes and then plainly heard the cheeping of a young 
bird, so I drove away the parent, and immediately afterwards 
the young ones were floating a little away from the shore. The 
other parent bird had another young one further along the bank, 
so I ran towards it, but the young one scrambled under the wing 
of its parent, who dived away with it. The little one, however, 
came to the surface about ten >ards from the shore. The 
young bird seemed able to dive unassisted about two yards. 
Old and young use their legs like a frog, horizontally, striking 
both at once, and bringing their feet together at the end of the 
stroke. I have seen the old ones diving in clear water some 
distance, but they did not use their wings. I spent the fol- 
lowing day watching the Dabchicks through a telescope. One 
old bird was sitting on the nest whilst the other dived for food, 
which she brought at intervals of about two minutes. When 
she approached the nest the young birds put their heads out 
from under the parent’s wing, and took the food the other parent 
brought. '1 he moment her provision was disposed of, she was 
off for more, always diving from place to place. The morsel, 
when found, required a good deal of shaking before it was fit 
to be given to the young birds, and when preirared, the parent 
dived with it in her beak, appearing again at the edge of the 
nest. Whilst I was watching her the bird on the nest caught 
sight of me, carefully covered the eggs that were still un- 
hatched, and slipped into the water. On going up to the nest 
I found two of the young birds amongst the rushes on the 
margin of the pond. I retired, and after watching a few 
minutes, saw the old bird suddenly appear at the side of the 
nest, after diving several times underneath it and swimming 
once or twice round it. Alter fully two minutes of this 
luaneeuvring it landed on the ne.it and proceeded most care- 
fully to remove the coveting from the eggs and arrange it 
round the sides of the nest ; tlien sitting upright for a moment 
and shaking out her feathers, she settled her breast upon the 
eggs. The other parent then came swimming up, and by its 
puffy appearance I think it had the youngsters under its wings. 
Seeing that all was going on well it piobably dt posited them 
