ONTARIO 

 pairs, and by the end of May have made choice of tlieir summer 

 residence. The Loon, in common with some other waterfowl, 

 has a curious habit when its curiosity is excited by any thing it 

 does not understand, of pointing its bill straight upwards, and 

 turning its head rapidly round in every direction as if trying thus 

 to solve the mystery under consideration. Once, when in my 

 shooting skiff, behind the rushes, drifting down the Bay before 

 a light wind, I came upon a pair of these birds feeding about 

 20 yards apart ; they did not take much notice of what must 

 have seemed to them to be a clump of floating rushes, and being 

 close enough to one of them I thought to secure it, but the cap 

 snapped, when the birds hearmg the noise, and still seeing nothing 

 living, rushed together and got their bills up as described for a con- 

 sultation, and so close did they keep to each other that I shot 

 them both dead at forty yards with the second barrel. 



6 URINATOR ARCTICUS (Linn.). 9 



Black-throated Loon. 



Back and under-parts much as in the last species ; upper part of head 

 and hind neck, bluish-ash or hoary-gray ; fore neck purplish-black. The 

 young resemble those of that species but will be known by their inferior size. 

 Length, under 2^ feet ; extent, about 3 ; wing, 13 or less ; tarsus, 3 ; bill, 

 about 2^. 



Hab. Northern part of the Northern hemisphere. In North America mi- 

 grating south in winter to the Northern United States. 



This is a much more northern bird than the preceding, it 

 being very seldom met with in the United States, and then mostly 

 in winter in immature plumage. In its migratory course it no 

 doubt visits the waters of Ontario, and should be looked for by 

 those who have opportunities of doing so. A pair of these birds 

 which were found in the neighbourhood of Toronto, were in- 

 cluded in a collection which was sent to the Paris Exhibition in 

 1866, and I once saw another in Hamilton Bay under circum- 

 stances which prevented me from shooting it though I was quite 

 close enough, and satisfied of its identity. It was on a still, dull 

 day in the early part of April, the ice on the Bay was broken up 

 and floating about in loose flakes. Waterfowl of different 



29 



