PYGOPODES. ( 311 ) COLYMBIDjE. 



THE RED-THROATED DIVER 



RAIN GOOSE, SPECKLED DIVER, RED -THROATED LOON, 

 SPRAT LOON. 



Colymhus septentrionalis. 



They carol not, but wail front off the deep 

 In piteous accents of impatient grief , 

 And some, like spirits hardened by despair, 

 Joy in the savage tempest. 



Faber, Sir Launcelot. 



The Eed-throated Diver, which is seen off the coast of Ber- 

 wickshire in the autumn, winter, and early spring months, 

 is called the Eain Goose in the north of Scotland, where its 

 wailing cry is thought to prognosticate wet and stormy 

 weather, during which it is frequently heard.^ It is some- 

 times found on the Tweed and the Whitadder. So long ago 

 as 1793 we find the Kev. Thomas Mill, minister of Lady- 

 kirk, recording in the Old Statistical Account of Scotland that 

 Speckled Divers sometimes resort to the Tweed in severe 

 winters ; ^ and I have known two instances of its occur- 

 rence on that river near Paxton within the last seven- 

 teen years. Mr. William Patterson has informed me that 

 he obtained for his collection a fine specimen of this bird 

 killed on the Whitadder near Preston about thirty years 

 ago. An example was caught near the village of Hutton in 



1 "Rain Goose — the Red-throated Diver (Colymhus septentrionalis, Linn.), 

 thus denominated because its crying is thought to prognosticate rain." Shet. 

 Caith. — Jamieson, Scot. Diet. Folkard in his Wild Fowler says the cry sounds 

 like "Kakeerah ! kakeerah ! " 



2 Old Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 74. 



