HABITS OF THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER. 197 
back. The other, in emerging, has perceived us, and somehow 
communicates the discovery to her mate. They swim about for a 
short while with erected necks, then sink into the water, their heads 
disappearing last; and when we see them again, they are 300 yards 
distant, standing out to sea, with half-submerged bodies.” “If shot 
at and not wounded,” continues this most picturesque of writers on 
natural history, ‘it never flies off, but dips into the water and rises 
at a great distance, and unless shot dead, there is little chance of 
procuring it, for its tenacity of life is great, and its speed far exceeds 
that of a four-oared boat.” 
The great American naturalist, Audubon, has left a most in- 
teresting account of this bird in his “ Ornithological Biography.” 
After describing the various Transatlantic localities in which he 
has studied its economy, he describes its nest. ‘One that I saw,” 
he says, “‘after the young had left it, on Lake Cayuga, was almost 
afloat, and rudely attached to the rushes, more than forty yards 
from the land, though its base was laid on the bottom, the water 
being only eight or nine inches deep. Others I examined in 
Labrador were placed on dry land, several yards from the water, 
and raised to the height of nearly a foot above the decayed moss 
on which they rested. The nest, however placed, is bulky, and 
formed of withered grasses and herbaceous plants found in the 
neighbourhood. The true nest, which is from a foot to fifteen 
inches in diameter, is raised to the height of seven or eight inches. 
Of the many nests I have examined, more contained three than two 
eggs, and I am confident that the former number most frequently 
occurs.” 
Of this handsome bird Sir John Richardson remarks, contrary 
to the generally-received notion, that it is seldom seen either in 
the Arctic Sea or Hudson’s Bay, but that it abounds in all the 
inland lakes. It is rarely found on land, being ill fitted for walking, 
but admirably adapted to aquatic habits, swimming with great swift- 
ness and for considerable distances under water ; and when it does 
come up, seldom exposing more than its neck. It flies heavily, but 
rather swiftly, and in a circle round those who have disturbed it in 
its haunts, its loud and melancholy cry resembling the howling of 
the wolf, or the distant scream of a man in distress. When the Loon 
calls frequently, it is supposed to portend a storm. In the bad 
weather preceding the advent of winter on the smaller northern 
American Jakes, previous to migration, their wild weird note is so 
unnatural, that both the Indians and settlers ascribe to it super- 
natural powers, 
