BRITISH BIRDS. 
21 
when it may feize its prey, on which it darts with 
almoft unerring certainty : often it remains for fe- 
veral.feconds under the water, before it has gained 
the objedl of its purfuit, then brings up the little 
fifh, which it carries to the land, beats to death, 
and fwallows. 
The female commonly makes her neft by the hdes 
of rivers or brooks, in a hole made by the mole, 
or the water-rat : this flie enlarges or contrails 
to fuit her purpofe ; and it is conjedured, from 
the difficulty of finding the neft, that frequently 
the hole which leads to it is under water. 
The author was favoured with a ftuffed fpecimen 
of this bird, together with its neft and fix eggs, by 
G. W. Wentworth, of Wolley-Hall, near Wakefield, 
efquire. In the compadnefs of its form, the neft 
refembled that of the Chaffinch: it was made en- 
tirely of fmall fifh bones, cemented together with a 
brown glutinous fubftance. The eggs were of si 
clear white. 
To take notice of the many ftrange and contra- 
didory accounts of this bird, as well as of its neft, 
tranfmitted to us by the antients,* and to enume- 
' ^ Their nefts are wonderful — of the figure of a ball rather 
elevated, with a very narrow mouth ; they look like a large 
fponge : they cannot be cut with a knife, but may be broken 
with a fmart ftroke : they have the appearance of petrified 
fea-froth. It is not difcovered of what they are formed ; fomc 
think of Prickly-back bones, fince they live upon fifh. Pliny. 
