seem an impassable gulf. This, however, is only a supposition. It seems more likely that the web has been, in most cases, gained by the extension of the slight membrane between the toes, at their junction with one another. Possibly the lobes on the toes of the coot were gained before he became a swimmer, and served the purpose of supporting him on mud or floating vegetation, or, as perhaps is more probable, they may have been developed in accordance with the double requirement. At any rate, if we suppose this structural modification to have been effected after the bird became in some degree truly acquatic, then, though this does not prove that the period at which it became so was longer ago than in the case of the moor-hen, which has remained structurally unaffected, yet it, perhaps, renders it likely, and we can, by supposing so, understand why the one bird should dive habitually and the other only occasionally.
The great crested grebe exhibits the same feature of variety in his manner of diving as does his sprightly little relative the dabchick. Sometimes it is quite informal—he just spears the water before disappearing, sinking in it a little before he spears—but at others there is the cormorant leap upwards as well as forwards, before going down. Of course, no more than with the dabchick is there the same tremendous vigour, the wonderful supple virility which lives in the leap of this strong-souled sea robber. I say "of course," for anyone who has watched these birds—the most ornamental, perhaps, of any except swans that swim the water—must have remarked a quiet, easy, one may almost say languid, grace—something suggestive of high birth, of "Lady Clara Vere de
