RED-THROATED DIVER. 148 
specimens occurring in the winter without than with the red 
throat, would seem to militate against this supposition, inas- 
much as not all of them can be supposed to be young birds, 
at all events not of the year, only two eggs being laid in 
the year. 
The female is not so large as the male, and the spots on 
her plumage are not so distinctly defined. Length, one foot 
nine inches; in the young bird the bill is grey, with a tinge 
of yellowish red; iris, reddish brown; head, erown, neck on 
the back, and nape, grey, finely streaked with greyish white; 
throat and breast, white, the flanks marked with grey spots 
of an angular shape; back, dark brownish, or blackish grey, 
the edges of the feathers paler at the tips. Primaries, deep 
dusky brown; legs, greyish green in front, the inner sides 
paler. 
Selby observes, ‘after the second moult, the grey upon the 
head, cheeks, etc., acquires the tint of the adult; and a few 
red feathers are often found mixed with the white upon the 
fore part of the neck. The upper parts assume a deeper 
tint; the spots of white grow less, frequently changing to a 
yellowish white; and as the bird advances to maturity entirely 
disappear.’ 
In the above paragraph he is speaking of the young bird. 
This species, as well as the allied one, has given rise, in 
the different stages of its plumage, to erroneous opinions, 
several kinds being made by authors out of two; but I trust 
that the descriptions I have given of each will be found 
sufficiently clear to identify the several birds, not only in 
their more or less advanced states of plumage, but also in 
the variations which occur in each at the earlier or later 
periods of the vear. 
