544 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 
and diving in that thick muddy water must be some- 
thing like walking in a London fog. 
The food of the Redthroated Diver consists of 
fish, on which it feeds rather greedily, as many as 
sixteen small fish having been seen to fall from 
the throat of one of these birds, as recorded in 
the ‘Zoologist’ for 1864. Mr. Blake-Knox gives 
rather a curious account of their diving for dabs: 
these fish generally hiding in the sand on the 
approach of danger, the Diver turns on his back and 
ploughs up the sand with his upper mandible to get 
them: this operation Mr. Knox says he has watched 
when fishing in clear water, and seen the dabs taken 
off his own line by the bird. 
The Redthroated Diver appears to breed in the 
northern part of Scotland and in the Scotch Islands: 
it is said to make little or no nest, but places its 
egos amongst the stones close to the water—so close 
sometimes that the bird can reach the water with its 
bill. 
As a subject of the chase this bird almost equals 
the Northern Diver, but I do not think it quite so 
difficult to obtain: I think, too, it is rather fonder of 
flying, which it does well and at a great pace: it 
occasionally flies by one’s boat, and gives a good 
chance of a shot in that way. 
Various papers in the ‘ Zoologist’ have, I think, 
nearly proved that the full plumage of this bird, with 
its red throat, is only a summer plumage, which it 
