BRITAIN S BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS. 15 



with tremendous force, the Diver hits the water and goes 

 shooting over the surface in a smother of spray and foam. 



Nonentities on land, clumsy, out-of-date pieces of 

 mechanism in the air, do the Loons survive merely because 

 of lack of enemies or rivals in their wild haunts ? No ; 

 they have specialised in another direction — namely, as 

 aquatic animals. We see it at once : the whole shape of 

 the body suggests ease in cleaving the water ; the position 

 of the legs, far back on the body, which is to a great 

 extent responsible for the bird's awkwardness on land, 

 suggests immense driving power ; the legs themselves, 

 ' shanks "" compressed to offer a narrow edge to the water ; 

 the webbed feet, so contrived as to present the largest 

 surface during strokes and the smallest surface between 

 strokes, suggest the same things. And we do find that 

 Divers are wonderfully expert in the water. Whether 

 swimming buoyantly on the surface or half-submerged in 

 a way which seems to defy the laws of hydrostatics, a 

 considerable speed is attained. At diving and swimming 

 under water Divers are adepts. Although, unlike Auks, 

 they do not use their wings, their rate of swimming is 

 rapid, and they can remain under water for a minute 

 and a half or more with ease. They catch the fish 

 they feed on by pursuing and ' spearing ■" them, and they 

 elude their own enemies by long under -water swims 

 in imexpected directions. And in the water they spend 

 most of their lives. In winter they keep to the sea 

 or to the larger lochs that remain unfrozen ; but in the 

 nesting season the Red-throated Diver especially shows 

 marked preference for the smaller sheets of water, on whose 

 edges or islets the nests are always placed. Usually, indeed, 

 the birds have to make a daily journey to fishing-grounds 

 with Avider scope than the lochans of their choice. 



The Divers as a group, and to a great extent as species, 



