TAME DIVERS 
87 
over them, and when a hand was stretched out to 
pick them up they would just dive below the keel, 
and rise as near on the other side. In the Irish Sea 
they kept so close to a yacht that the spray from the 
bow, or the parting waves under the stern, seemed 
often about to break over them. That this was due 
to a certain confidence in man is partly shown by 
the behaviour of a young bird which was found by 
some members of the same ship’s party, swimming 
by itself in a small lagoon left by the tide off the 
Norfolk coast. Razorbills are not common near this 
low shore, and this young bird had probably come in 
pursuit of a shoal of fish, and been unable to find 
its companions again. In any case it was quite alone, 
and in the absence of any of its own kind, made itself 
one of a bathing party of young people who fre- 
quented the part of the beach where it was first seen. 
It allowed itself to be caught and taken up to the 
house, where, on the arrival of the elders from a drive, 
it was found in the stableyard, sitting in the middle 
of a large preserving-pan which had been turned into 
a temporary stew-pond for a number of small eels 
which the children had amused themselves with 
catching when paddling in the stream the day before. 
“ It has eaten all the fish ! ” was the first intelligence 
of the ways of the new arrival ; as a fact, there were 
one or two eels left, at which the razorbill, looking 
like one who had greatly dined, now and then aimed 
an apathetic peck. To be carried inland by children, 
and then, surrounded by a whole family of humans. 
