Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/259

Rh diving close to the button bushes. The female is apparently uniformly black, another, dark brown, but the male has a conspicuous crest. Apparently white on the hind head, with a white breast and white line on the lower sides of the, neck: that is, the head and breast are black and white conspicuously.

The sheldrake has a peculiar long clipper look, often moving rapidly straight forward over the water. It sinks to very various depths, sometimes, as when apparently alarmed, showing only its head and neck and the upper part of its back, and at others, when at ease, floating buoyantly on the surface, as if it had taken in more air, showing all its white breast and the white along its sides. Sometimes it lifts itself up on the surface and flaps its wings, revealing its whole rosaceous breast and its lower parts, looking in form like a penguin It was a pretty sight to see a pair of them tacking about, always within a foot or two of each other, heading the same way, now on this short tack, now on that, the male taking the lead, sinking deep and looking every way. When the whole twelve had come together they would soon break up again, and were continually changing their ground, though not diving, now sailing slowly this way a dozen rods, and now that, and now coming in near the shore.