712 WHITE-BILLED NORTHERN DIVER. 



1895-96 in Hampshire. Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe lias recently 

 identified, in the collection of Mr. Bulkley Allen of Altrincham, a 

 young bird shot on Loch Fyne, late in the autumn of 1S93. 



During the breeding-season the White-billed Diver appears to be 

 circumpolar in its distribution. It may be this large species — and 

 not C. glacialis — that is found on the island of Jan Mayen and has 

 been observed in Spitsbergen; while in 1895 and 1S97 birds were 

 observed, by members of Mr. Pearson's Expeditions, at two places 

 in the southern island of Novaya Zemlya ; and the species probably 

 occurs in Arctic Russia. Prof. CoUett has shown (Ibis 1894, 

 pp. 269-281) that many individuals have been obtained in Norway : 

 and a young bird shot in Upper Austria in 1840 has recently been 

 referred to this species. In Siberia Mr. Popham was told that the 

 species was very rare on the Yenesei, but he received a skin from the 

 Boganida district, and Middendorff stated long ago that the birds he 

 obtained on the Taimyr peninsula had yellowish-white bills. Eastward 

 this Diver was found nesting on the Chuckchi peninsula, in 1879, 

 by Lieut. Palander of the ' Vega,' and it can be traced to the islands 

 of Bering Sea and Alaska. In the last it is at least predominant, 

 though further south, as well as round Great Slave Lake, it meets 

 with C. glacialis ; no intermediate forms being known. In winter 

 it ranges through the North Pacific down to Japan; while, as already 

 indicated, it is found in summer throughout America to the north of 

 the Arctic circle. 



Messrs. Nelson, R. MacFarlane, or other explorers of the Fur 

 countries, give no special description of the breeding-habits of this 

 species, but in all probability these do not differ from those of the 

 Great Northern Diver. The two eggs from which Lieut. Palander 

 shot the hen-bird near Pitlekai, Chuckchi peninsula, on July loth, 

 averaged 3*65 by 2"3 in. The 'laugh' is said to be somewhat 

 harsher than that of its congener. The distinctions between the 

 two species have already been mentioned ; but it may be added 

 that the length of a male bird is about t^t, in., and of its wing i5'i in. 



