1S4 Allen's naturalist's library. 



tions which have hitherto been supposed to be Great Northern 

 Divers. The specimens actually recognised as British are, as 

 yet, few, one from Pakenham, in Norfolk, being in Mr. 

 Gurneys collection; another from Suffolk recorded by the late 

 ])r. Babington ; while a third is in the Newcastle Museum, from 

 the coast of Northumberland. 



Range outside the British Islands. — The White-billed Diver is 

 believed to inhabit the whole of Arctic Russia and Siberia to the 

 islands of Bering Sea and Alaska, down to Japan in winter ; 

 and Mr. Saunders believes that it is this species, and not 

 C. giacialis, which is found in Jan Mayen Island, Spitsbergen, 

 and Novaya Zemlya. The si)ecies was found by Norden- 

 skjold, during the " Vega " expedition, breeding on Tschuktschi- 

 kind, and Professor Collett believes that it visits the coasts 

 of the North Sea in winter, coming from Siberia; he has 

 examined several specimens from Norway. It also appears, 

 like C. glacialis and other Divers, to visit inland waters, as 

 Ritter Tschusi zu Schmidhoffen records it from Hungary. In 

 North America it is found in the Arctic Regions to the west 

 of Hudson's Bay, going south in winter, and occurring on the 

 Great Lakes. 



Habits. — These are supposed to be similar to those of 

 C. glacialis, but little has been recorded on the subject. 

 Professor Collett says that some of the Norwegian specimens 

 were caught in nets in which they had been entangled when 

 diving. The largest male in the University Museum at 

 Christiania, from the Porsanger Fjord, was taken on a hook 

 which was laid at a depth of about fifteen fathoms. In the 

 specimens dissected by him, the stomach was filled with remains 

 of fishes, and had a quantity of gravel in it. One contained 

 an example of a full grown female, filled with roe, of Coitus 

 scorpius. Dr. Stejneger, who found the species a rare winter 

 visitant in the Commander Islands, obtained a specimen 

 in a rather curious manner. He says : — " It w^as found sitting 

 on the smooth ice of Lake Saranna (25th of November, 1882), 

 unable to run upon or lift itself from the glib surface. It evi- 

 dently had mistaken the transparent and shining ice for open 

 water." Von Tschusi relates a similar mis'ake on the part 

 of a flock of Coots, Fulica aira, L. (cf. J. f. O., 1874, 



