Love's Meinie: Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds

by John Ruskin

Fig. 12.

And, for one question, relative to this—the balance of a bird standing, not gripping—is to be thought of. Taking a typical profile of bird-form in its abstract, with beak, belly, and foot, horizontal (Fig. 12), the security of the standing, (supposing atomic weight equal through the bird's body, and the will, in the ankle, of iron,) is the same as of an inverted cone, between the dotted lines from the extremities of the foot to those of the body; and, of course, with a little grip of the foot or hind claw, the bird can be safe in almost any position it likes. Nevertheless, when the feet are as small in proportion as the Torrent-ouzel's, I greatly doubt the possibility of such a balance as Bewick has given it (Fig. 13 a). Gould's of the black-bodiced Ouzel (Fig. 13 b) is, I imagine, right. Bewick was infallible in plume texture, and expression either of the features of animals, or of any action that had meaning in it; but he was singularly careless of indifferent points in geometry or perspective; and even loses character in his water-birds, by making them always swim on the top of the water.

Fig. 13a.

101. But, whatever their balance of body, or use of foot, the two birds just examined are, as I said, essentially connected with the running land birds, or broadly, the Plovers; and with the Sand-runners, or (from their cry) Sandpipers, which Mr. Gould evidently associates mentally with the Plovers, in his description of the plumage of the Dunlin; while he gives to them in his plates of that bird—the little Stint, and common Sandpiper—most subtle action with their fine feet,—thread-fine, almost, in the toes; requiring us, it seems to me, to consider them as entirely land-birds, however fond of the wave margins. But the next real water-ouzel we come to, belongs to a group with feet like little horse-chestnut leaves; each toe having its separate lobes of web. Why separated, I cannot yet make out, but the bird swims, or even dives, on occasion, with dexterity and force. These lobe-footed birds consist first of the Grebes, which are connected with fresh-water ducks; and, secondly, of the Phalaropes, which are a sort of sea-gulls. No bird which is not properly web-footed has any business to think itself either true duck or true gull; but as, both in size and habit of life, the larger grebes and phalaropes are entirely aquatic and marine, I shall take out of them into my class of dabchicks, only those which are literally dabblers in habit, and chickens in size. And of the Grebes, therefore, only the one commonly known as the Dabchick, the 'Little Grebe,' 'Colymbus Minutus' (Minute Diver), of Linnæus. A summary word or two, first, respecting the Grebe family, will be useful.

Fig. 13b.

102. Grebe, properly, I suppose, Grèbe, from the French, is not in Johnson, nor do any of my books tell me what it means. I retain it, however, as being short, not ugly, and well established in two languages. We may think of it as formed from gré, and meaning 'a nice bird.' The specialities of the whole class, easily remembered, are, first, that they have chestnut-leaf feet; secondly, that their legs are serrated behind with a double row of notches—(why?); thirdly, that they have no tails; fourthly, that they have, most of them, very fine and very comic crests, tufts, tippets, and other variously applied appendages to their heads and chins, so that some are called 'crested,' some 'eared,' some 'tippeted,' and so on; but the least of them, our proper Dabchick, displays no absurdity of this sort, and I have the less scruple in distinguishing it from others. I find, further, in Stanley's classes, the Grebes placed among the short-winged birds, and made to include all the divers; but he does not say how short their wings are; and his grouping them with guillemots and puffins is entirely absurd, all their ways and looks, and abodes, being those of ducks. We can say no more of them as a family, accordingly, until we know what a duck is;—and I go on to the little pet of them, whose ways are more entirely its own.

103. Strangely, the most interesting fact (if fact it be) that it builds a floating nest, gains scarcely more than chance notice from its historians. Here is Mr. Gould's account of it: "The materials composing this raft or nest are weeds and aquatic plants carefully heaped together in a rounded form; it is very large at the base, and is so constantly added to, that a considerable portion of it becomes submerged; at the same time it is sufficiently buoyant to admit of its saucer-like hollow top being always above the surface. In this wet depression five or six eggs are laid. The bird, always most alert, is still more so now, and scarcely ever admits of a near examination of the nest-making, or of a view of the eggs. In favorable situations, however, and with the aid of a telescope, the process may be watched; and it is not a little interesting to notice with what remarkable quickness the dabchick scratches the weeds over her eggs with her feet, when she perceives herself observed, so as not to lead even to the suspicion that any were deposited on the ill-shapen floating mass. This work of an instant displays as much skill in deception as can well be imagined."

104. It is still left to question, first, what is meant by a wet depression?—does the bird actually sit in the water, and are the eggs under it? and, if not, how is the water kept out? Secondly, is the floating nest anchored, and how? Looking to other ornithologists for solution of these particulars, I find nobody else say anything about a floating nest at all. Bewick describes it as being of a large size, and composed of a very great quantity of grass and water plants, at least a foot in thickness, and so placed in the water that the female hatches her eggs amidst the continual wet in which they were first laid. Yarrell says only that it is a large flat nest made of aquatic plants; while Morris finally complicates the whole business by telling us that the nest is placed often as much as twenty or thirty yards from the water, that it is composed of short pieces of roots, reeds, rushes, and flags, and that when dry the whole naturally becomes very brittle.[23] ]