Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/191

Rh more or less frightened away, one could read in his actions the idea that there was no further need for exertion when he was once out of the "reach" of the latter's long neck. He thus took the minimum of trouble necessary to avoid the danger, and this I have often observed with birds. Moor-hens, though so pugnacious, know well their limitations, giving instant way, as a rule, even to a Coot when attacked by one. However, so do the weaker to the stronger ones amongst themselves.

Seen now swimming close, the Great Crested Grebe shows not a particle of his silver feathering—I speak, of course, of the under surface—above the water-line. In a wind the handsome crest or double tippet is being constantly blown back round his head and face, giving him a funny dishevelled appearance. It is of a fine orange and black, whilst from amidst it projects the thin white face with the long sharp-pointed spear of a beak. The long serpent neck is brown on the back, white and silver-white on the belly, and, with the swelling crested head, makes the bird look like a Water-Cobra. His dive is sometimes quite informal, just lazily spearing the water, sinking a little in it before he spears it; sometimes it is with the right Cormorant leap upwards and then downwards, though much less vigorously carried out. Sometimes again the long straight-stretched neck with sharp pickaxe beak shooting out at a right angle sweeps down without a curve. Certainly one of the most ornamental of water-birds, and that it should require protection shows us to be still inappreciative savages.

He has just come up with a good-sized fish in his bill, which he shifts about till he gets the head downwards in it before swallowing. Yet fish abound in this water, and were far more numerous, according to all accounts, in the Norfolk Broads in those days when the Crested Grebe was also—a remark which can be equally well applied to the Otter. No doubt when we import Sheep and Goats into a country infested with Wolves, the latter must be got rid of, but it is the height of absurdity to interfere between one indigenous wild creature and another. All that we have to do is to leave them both alone, and both flourish. The very existence of a preying species must show an abundance of the species preyed upon in exact proportion to its own, as is—or was—well seen in a country like Africa.