714 BLACK-THROATED DIVER. 



The Black-throated Diver has been recorded as an exceptional 

 visitor to the Faeroes ; while in winter it is met with on the 

 coasts and inland waters of the Continent down to the Mediter- 

 ranean, Black and Caspian Seas. In summer it is decidedly rare 

 as a breeding-species to the southward of the German side of the 

 Baltic, but northward and eastward it is very abundant on the lakes 

 of Scandinavia, Finland and Russia ; while, by way of Kolguev and 

 the south island of Novaya Zemlya, it can be traced across Siberia 

 to the Pacific. In winter it visits Japan. Arctic America, especially 

 to the west of the line of the Rocky Mountains, is inhabited by a 

 form with a paler nape ; but our bird seems to occur over the eastern 

 area. It has not yet been identified in Greenland, Iceland, Jan 

 Mayen or Spitsbergen. 



In Scotland the margin of a green island in some fairly large 

 fresh-water loch is usually selected ; the 2 eggs being laid in May, 

 often on a substantial mass of crushed vegetable matter ; they vary 

 in colour from olive- to russet-brown, with sparse spots of black or 

 umber: measurements 3*25 by 2'i5 in. In the Petchora district 

 Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Seebohm found a large floating nest, 

 partially supported by aquatic plants. Mr. S. Graham informs me 

 that he knows a mountain-loch in Argyll where, on three occasions, 

 the first and second clutciies of eggs were taken, after which a third 

 clutch was produced and hatched. Incubation lasts 28 days (W. 

 Evans). The cry of this Diver is loud and discordant, the flight is 

 said to be unusually rapid, and the food consists chiefly of fish. 



The adult in summer has the crown and hind-neck ash-grey ; 

 upper-parts nearly black, barred and spotted with white; chin and 

 throat purplish-black, with an intermediate half-collar of short white 

 streaks ; sides of the neck striped with black and white ; under-parts 

 white ; bill black ; irides red ; legs and feet brown. Length about 

 27 in. ; wing 1175 in. Females are but slightly smaller than males, 

 and both sexes, when mature, have black throats. By the middle 

 of September the autumnal moult is completed, and the chin, 

 throat, and under-parts are then white, while the upper plumage is 

 chiefly ash-brown. The young bird has the hind-neck of a much 

 purer grey than the immature Northern Diver, which it otherwise 

 resembles in its general plumage ; it is, however, decidedly smaller. 



