has cast up. They ride like corks on the water, they are the arch of each wave and the dimple of every ripple.
Eider-ducks feed by diving to the bottom of the sea off the rocks where it is shallow, and getting there what is palatable. Probably this is, in most cases, eaten under water, but whilst, as a rule, emerging empty-mouthed, they occasionally bring up something in their bill, and dispose of it floating on the surface. In one case this was, I think, a crab; in another, some kind of shell-fish. Their dive is a sudden dip down, and in the act of it they open the wings, which they use under water, as can be plainly seen for a little way below the surface. This opening of the wings in the moment of diving is, I believe, a sure sign that they are used as fins or flippers under water, and that the feet play little or no part.
Birds, amongst others, that dive in this way are—to begin with—the black guillemot.
"Looking down from the cliffs into the quiet pools and inlets, one can see these little birds—the dabchicks of the ocean—swimming under water and using their wings as paddles, perfectly well. Instantly on diving they become of a glaucous green colour, and are then no longer like things of this world, but fanciful merely, suggesting sprites, goblins, little subaqueous bottle imps, for their shape is like a fat-bodied bottle or flat flask. Great green bubbles they look like, and so too but—larger and still greener—do the eider-ducks." In their small size and rounded shape, in their deariness, their pretty little ways and actions, in everything, almost, these little black guillemots are the marine counterpart of
