8o 
DIVING BIRDS AT THE ZOO 
up and down in this space of a few feet as well as it 
could in the open ocean. In the next, the water does 
for the diving bird what it does for all its true 
children, be they birds or fish or plants or flowers ; 
it adds a lustre and beauty, a something of “ sea- 
change,” whose effects not even sunlight can surpass. 
The plumage of the birds undergoes a transmutation 
in the “ waves’ intenser day,” which seems to fit them 
for everlasting flight in the palaces and grottos of the 
sea-nymphs, across which they fly, bearing bubbles of 
sunlight from above, scattering them through their 
chambers like crystal globes of fire. Those who have 
seen Sir E. Burne Jones’ painting of the mermaid, 
In the Depths of the Sea , will guess the means 
by which this glimpse of the water world was made 
possible, and realize in part the effect which the 
beauties so disclosed produce upon the senses, from 
the use which the gifted artist made of them in this, 
one of the few successful efforts made to paint a 
submarine scene. 
The greater part of the end of the Fish House is 
crossed by a large reservoir, some five feet deep and 
ten wide, with a glass front. The light strikes upon 
it from above, and for all purposes of vision the 
spectator might be standing on the sea-floor, and 
looking along the vista which is level with his eye. 
Every movement of the birds can be seen and noted 
from the moment of their first plunge till their exit 
up the sloping board which leads to their cages. 
Tike most other animals at the Zoo, these birds are 
