COLYMBIDit. 



713 



THE BLACK-THROATED DIVER. 



CoLVMBUS ARCTicus, Liimjeus. 



The Black-throated Diver is by far the rarest in winter of 

 the three species which annually visit the coasts of England ; and 

 the examples obtained generally prove to be immature birds, 

 although adults are sometimes met with as far south as the 

 Channel, and westward to the estuary of the Dart in Devon, or 

 occasionally in Wales. Few occurrences are known in Ireland 

 at any season, though birds with full black throats have been 

 recorded as late as the month of April by Mr. R. Warren from the 

 mouth of the Moy, and by Mr. L. Patterson from the neighbour- 

 hood of Belfast. In Scotland, as long ago as 1834 this Diver was 

 shown by Jardine and Selby to be a breeding-species in Sutherland, 

 and it is now known to be widely though thinly scattered over 

 the counties of the north and west ; and a pair of birds — with 

 their nest cut out from the soil, procured in Caithness by Col. 

 L. H. L. Irby and Capt. S. G. Reid — fill an attractive case in the 

 British Museum. Several of the lochs of Inverness-shire, Perth- 

 shire, Ross and Argyll, as well as many in the Outer Hebrides, 

 afford congenial summer-quarters, and Mr. T. E. Buckley observed 

 birds during May, June and July on some of the lakes of Rousay 

 in the Orkneys. Up to the present time the Black-throated Diver 

 is not known to have been obtained in the Shetlands at any season 

 of the year ; but Mr. Thomas Edmondston has recently informed 

 me that he identified the species on two occasions in the western 

 portion of Mainland, and has also received its eggs from that locality. 



