Soon a new attraction. It was a bird in the water quite near, about the size of a pigeon, though slenderer, glossy black, save a patch of pure white on the wing, and with an eye that glittered like a black jewel. "Sea-pigeon," said the artist, and desired his skilful Canadian to secure the prize. The other arose and took deliberate aim. The bird, now not more than ten yards distant, did not offer to fly, and made no attempt to swim away, but kept its paddles well under it, with its head turned from us, while it swung lightly from side to side, glancing backward with its keen, audacious eye, now over this shoulder, now over that. The gun flashed; the shot spattered over the spot where a bird had been; but _quicker_ than a flash that creature was under water and well out of harm's way! The shot could have been scarcely out of the muzzle before he had disappeared. To see such inconceivable celerity reminded one that the wings of gnats, which vibrate fifteen thousand times in a second, and light, that makes (_vide_ Tyndale) twenty and odd millions of undulations in going an inch, are not without their fellow-wonders in Nature. Meanwhile the whole performance was so cool and neat that I could not afterwards help thinking of this creature as a humorist, and picturing it as quietly chuckling to itself under water. With reason, too; for above water was such a prolonged and ludicrous stare of amazement from at least three pairs of eyes as might satisfy the most immoderate appetite for the laughable. This artful dodger was the Black Guillemot. It cannot be shot, if its eye is on the fowler. Eager for "specimens," I tried my long, powerful ducking-gun upon it an hour or two later, sufficiently to prove this. The birds would wait and watch, all the while glancing from side to side, and dip, dip, dipping their bills in the water with infinite wary quickness of movement, and yet with an air of audacious unconcern; but the pull at the trigger seemed to touch some nerve in them, and by the same act you fired your shot at them and fired them under water. The curious dipping of the bill just alluded to is mentioned as characteristic of the Phalaropes, though I did not observe it, and is thought to be a snapping-up of minute Crustacea. But in the case of the Black Guillemot, I question if this be its true explanation. The bird makes this movement only when on the alert. Several of them are frolicking together; you show yourself, and instantly their bills begin to dip,--each movement being quick as lightning, but with a second of space between. I thought it partly an escape-valve for their nervous excitement, and partly a keeping in practice of their readiness to dive. To suppose them taking food under such circumstances,--one would fain think himself more formidable in their eyes than that coolness would imply.