fresh-water lakes, sometimes, but only casually, it may be seen in quiet bays upon the sea-coast, more especially in such as are at the mouths of rivers. Unlike the Divers, it seems to prefer flowing streams to stagnant water, and often wanders along the course of rivers, from which it only makes excursions to such lakes and ponds as may be free from ice. When walking, the Dwarf Goosander holds its body in a horizontal position, with its head retracted; it walks with a waddling gait, but better than the generality of its near allies. When swimming it keeps itself about half submerged, and when it dives it stretches itself out to its full length, and disappears in an instant. Its flight, which very much resembles that of the smaller Ducks, is rapid, straight, accompanied by a slight whirring of the wings, and is generally but little elevated above the surface of the ground or of the water. It is remarkably lively in its disposition, and even during the bitterest cold weather is sprightly and active. These birds may generally be recognised by the manner of their diving; the True Divers, after their plunge, generally reappear close to the spot where they went down, but the Goosanders swim while under water to a considerable distance, shooting along like a pike or a trout, and as they can keep submerged for a minute at a time, it is not easy to calculate where they will come up again. They live principally upon small fishes, crustaceans, and aquatic insects, and in confinement, at least, do not refuse vegetables; they will also eat bread greedily. In catching fishes they are quite as skilful as the larger Divers, and it is very interesting to watch a flock of them thus employed. Now you see them swimming altogether; in a moment they all vanish at once, and the water becomes disturbed by their movements underneath; at length they come up again one after another, but widely separated, and often from thirty to fifty yards from the place where they went down. Again they congregate, and anon they dive again; some of them coming up perhaps close to the shore. Sometimes they are obliged to procure their food through small holes in the ice, often not a foot square, and to pursue their game beneath the frozen surface, only presenting themselves every now and then at the aperture for a supply of air. Their power of seeing under the water must therefore be very good, or they would never be able to find the broken place at which to emerge. Where the supply of food is scanty they will rake up the bottoms of ponds, in search of frogs or insects. The habit of diving all at once is peculiar to the Goosanders, and the explanation of this manœuvre seems to be that by so doing they come among the astonished fishes in all directions, thus enabling one bird to catch those that are trying to escape from another; but we have never seen them, as some writers assert, arrange themselves in the form of a crescent, so as to drive the fishes, as it were, into a narrow space.