480 
WATER OUZEL. 
river as it does upon a dry bank. M. Hebert com- 
municated the following account of this extraordi- 
nary habit to the count de BufFon : “ I lay am- 
bushed on the verge of the lake Nantua, in a hut 
formed of pine branches and snow, where I patient- 
ly waited till a boat, which was rowing on the lake, 
should drive some wild-ducks to the water's edge. 
I observed without being perceived : before me was 
a small inlet, the bottom of which gently shelved, 
and might be about two or three feet deep in the 
middle. A water ouzel stopped here more than an 
hour, and I had full leisure to view its manoeuvres. 
It entered into the water, disappeared, and again 
emerged on the other side of the inlet, which it 
thus repeatedly forded. It traversed the whole of 
the bottom, and seemed not to have changed its 
element, and discovered no hesitation or reluctance 
in the immersion. However, I perceived several 
times, that as often as it waded deeper than the 
knee, it displayed its wings, and allowed them to 
hang to the ground. I remarked, too, that when I 
could discern it at the bottom of the water, it ap- 
peared enveloped with air, which gave it a brilliant 
surface, like some sorts of beetles, which are al- 
ways in water, inclosed with a bubble of air. Its 
view in dropping its wings on entering the water 
might be to coniine this air ; it was certainly never 
without some, and it seemed to quiver. These 
singular habits of the water ouzel were unknown 
to all the sportsmen whom I have talked with ; and 
perhaps without the accident of the snow-hut, I 
