168 On the Ornithology of Wilts \_Alcadce]. 



in Norway was the almost daily view of a pair of tLese fine Divers, 

 or its congeners, the " Black-throated " (C arcticiis), or the " Eed- 

 throated" (Cseptcnirionalis), swimming in the midst of some salt- 

 water fjord or fresh-water inland lake, monarchs of all they surveyed, 

 for I never recollect meeting with two pairs on the same water. 

 They are all wild shy birds, and extremely difHcult to shoot from 

 the facility with which they would dive, the distance they would 

 traverse before they rose again to the surface, and their instantaneous 

 disappearance again beneath the water when alarmed ; and I have 

 spent hours in chasing them in a boat before I could secure the 

 specimens I wanted. The Great Northern Diver is the species 

 •which most commonly visits our shores, though all three occur 

 sparingly on our coasts : but they are not often found in the in- 

 terior of the country. In Wiltshire however I have no less than 

 five instances of this bird's occurrence. The late Mr. Marsh had 

 an immature specimen in his collection shot by his brother in the 

 river at Salisbury in 1831 ; and an adult specimen killed on the 

 borders of the county near Bath in February, 1838. Holliday, a 

 birdstufier at Calne informed me that he had preserved one which 

 was shot at Bowood in 1855. A very fine specimen was taken in 

 a brook leading from Spye Park to Chittoe, in November 1853, and 

 is still in the possession of Captain Meredith ; the particulars of 

 vrhose capture I recorded in the Zoologist at that time ^ ; and a fifth 

 was killed on Mr. Heneage's water at Lyneham, and is now pre- 

 served in the hall at Compton Basset House. 



ALCAD^ fT/ie Auks). 

 This family comprizes the Guillemots, the true Auks and the 

 Puffins, and I had very nearly omitted the whole family altogether 

 from my AViltshire list, as until these pages were in the press I 

 had no instance of the occurrence of any of them, and had no 

 expectation of hearing of any straggler so far from the coast and 

 from so thoroughly maritime a race as all the Alcado3 are. Indeed 

 so entirely marine are their habits, that they pass almost all their 

 lives in and on the sea, and accordingly their legs are placed so far 

 1 Zoologist for 1854, p. 4166. 



