292 WILD-FOWL AND SEA-FOWL OF GREAT BRITAIN 



the time being, as the fish they feed on ; if alarmed 

 in any way, they sink the body, so that only the 

 head and part of the neck are above water — a very 

 small mark to cover from a boat. Should the shot 

 take effect, well and good ; if it does not, it is not 

 the least use rowing after the specimen, or, for the 

 matter of that, sailing. The fishing-nets sometimes 

 mesh these fowl when they are racing the shoals, 

 but not so often as they do the Great Northern and 

 the Red-throated Divers. 



The Black-throated species prefers fresh waters 

 as a rule. On the hill lochs in summer they are 

 fairly numerous at times, several birds being seen 

 together. They are eagerly sought for as specimens 

 for setting up, but like its larger relative, this is a 

 wary bird. A pair of Black-throats in full feather 

 are no small prize for a shooter, for their haunts are 

 not very accessible ones, and the birds are far worse 

 to get at. But in point of fact they must be con- 

 sidered merely as visitors, for the few that breed 

 in Scotland and the Isles are as nothing to those 

 that visit us from northern lands. Selby, in 1834, 

 discovered this species nesting at the foot of Loch 

 Shin, and upon most of the interior Sutherland 

 lochs. The nest, if a bit of bare ground at times 

 can be called one, is a short distance only from the 

 water, so that the bird, sitting horizontally on her 

 eggs, not upright, can push herself off them, and 

 glide on the cushion feathers of her breast into the 

 water like a seal. The long, oval-shaped eggs, two 

 in number — sometimes three — are brownish-olive, 



