[Illustration: {A PAIR OF BIRDS.}]
Birds, and birds, and birds! Have you any idea how many kinds of birds
there are? I am very sorry you could not count them all. And such
queer fellows many of them are! There are butcher-birds and
tailor-birds, soldier-birds--the penguins, you know, who stand on the
sea-shore like companies of soldiers, "heads up, eyes front, arms
(meaning wings) at the sides"--and sailor-birds. It is about one of
the sailor-birds and his babies that I am going to tell you now. She
is called the Little Grebe, or sometimes, by her intimate friends, the
Dabchick. She is a pretty little bird, about nine inches long, with
brown head and back, and grayish-white breast. She and her husband are
both extremely fond of the water. "We are first cousins to the
Divers!" they sometimes say proudly. "The Divers are never happy away
from the water, and neither are we. It is very vulgar to live on land
all the time. One might almost as well have four legs, and be a
creature at once!" (The Divers are a very proud family, and speak of
all quadrupeds as "creatures.") Mr. and Mrs. Grebe have very
curiously webbed feet, looking more like a horse-chestnut leaf with
three lobes than anything else. They are excellent swimmers and
divers; indeed, in diving, the Great Northern Diver himself is not so
quick and alert. If anything frightens them, pop! they are under the
water in the shaking of a feather; and you may sometimes see them in a
pond, popping up and down like little absurd Jacks-in-the-box. As they
think the land so very vulgar, of course they do not want to bring up
their children on it.
[Illustration: {BIRDS ON THE RIVER.}]
Oh, dear, no! They find a pleasant, quiet stream, or pond, where there
are plenty of reeds and rushes growing in the water, and where there
is no danger of their being disturbed by "creatures." Then they go to
work and make a raft, a regular raft, of strong stems of water-plants,
reeds, and arrow-heads, plaited and woven together with great care and
skill. It is light enough to float, and yet strong enough to bear the
weight of the mother-bird.
While she is building it she sits, or stands, on another and more
roughly built raft, which is not meant to hold together long. Mr.
Grebe helps her, pulling up the water-plants and cutting off the stems
the right length; and so this little couple work away till the
raft-nest is quite ready. Then Mrs. Grebe takes her place on it, and
proceeds to lay and hatch her eggs. There are five or six eggs, and
they are white when she lays them; but they do not keep their
whiteness long, for the water-weeds and the leaves that cover the
raft soon decay, and stain the pretty white eggs, so that they are
muddy brown by the time they are hatched. Well, there little Madame
Grebe sits, brooding contentedly over her eggs, and thinking how
carefully she will bring up her children, so that they will be a
credit to the family of the Divers. Mr. Grebe paddles, and dives and
pops up and down about the nest, and brings her all sorts of good
things to eat,--worms for dinner, minnows for supper, and for
breakfast the most delicate and appetizing of flies and beetles. One
day, when he brings his wife's dinner (a fine stickle-back), he finds
her in a state of great excitement.
"My dear," she says, "I am going to move. I cannot endure this place
another hour. I only waited to tell you about it."
"Why, what is the matter, my love?" asks Mr. Grebe, in amazement.
"Some creatures have been here," answers little madam,
indignantly,--"huge, ugly monsters, with horns; cows, I believe they
are called. They have torn up the reeds, and muddied the water; and,
if you will believe it, Dabchick, one of them nearly walked right over
me; then I flew in his face, and gave him a good fright, I can tell
you. But the whole thing has upset me very much, and I am determined
to leave the place."
"Very well, my love," says the dutiful Dabchick. "Whatever you say is
always right!"
Accordingly, when she has finished her dinner, Mrs. Grebe puts one
foot into the water, and paddles her raft away as skilfully as if she
were an Indian in a birch canoe. She steers it round the corners, and
paddles on and on, till she finds another quiet nook, where there is
no sign of any "creatures." Then she draws in her paddle-foot, and
broods quietly again, while Mr. Grebe, who has followed her, goes to
explore the new surroundings, and see what he can pick up for supper.
After a time the muddy brown eggs crack open one by one, and out come
the young Dabchicks, pretty, little, fuzzy brown balls. They shake
themselves, and look at each other, and say how-d'-ye-do to their
mother and father; and then, without any more delay, pop! they go into
the water. "Hurrah!" says one. "I can swim!"