2 64 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH BIRDS 



Order XII. PYGOPODES 



Fam. COLYMBIDtE. 



GREAT NORTHERN DIVER. Colymbus glacialis, Liu- 

 lueiis. PI. 31, fig. 1. Length, 32 in.; bill, 3-5 in.; 

 wing, 14 in. ; tarsus, 3*5 in. 



A winter visitant, a few remaining throughout 

 the summer in Scotland and the Hebrides. Mr. 

 Harvie-Brown discovered a pair breeding on a wild 

 lonely loch in Assynt, Sutherland shire (ZooL, 1868, 

 pp. 1309, 1424). Saxby was satisfied that this bird 

 had nested in the island of Yell (" Birds of Shetland," 

 p. 279), and Edmondston also believed that it was 

 occasionally to be found breeding in Shetland (Zool. , 

 1843, p. 365), but there is no satisfactory evidence 

 of its having done so. (See Buckley and Evans' 

 "Fauna of Shetland," p. 205.) In Ireland it is a 

 regular winter visitor, the majority immature birds. 



As to the distinction between this species and 

 the closely allied White-billed Diver {Colymbus 

 adamsi), and the claims of the latter to rank as a 

 British bird, cf. Seebohm {Zool, 1885, p. 144), Col- 

 lett {Ibis, 1894, p. 269, with plate), and Harting 

 {Zool, 1896, p. 16). A White-billed Diver was shot 

 at Pakefield, on the Suffolk coast, early in the spring 

 of 1852, and is figured by Babington in his "Birds 

 of Suffolk." Another specimen, now in the New- 

 castle Museum, was shot on the coast of Northum- 

 berland, but the precise date is unknown. There is 



