174 THE NATURALIST IN NOEWAY. 



makes a rough kind of nest among the reeds or coarse 

 herbage by the side of inland lakes, where it lays two 

 eggs of a gray -brown colour, tinted with black, and 

 marked with black spots. When the young are born, 

 the unnatural mother generally kills one of them, but 

 she endeavours to make amends by exhibiting unusual 

 care for the survivor. She swims about in the water, 

 and dives to the bottom with her offspring on her 

 back. 



The flesh of this bird is rank and tough, but the 

 Lapps esteem it as a delicacy, a proof that there is no 

 accounting for taste in such matters. 



The red-throated diver (G. septentrionalis) . Also 

 common in Finmark during the breeding-season. Its 

 Norwegian name is smaa-lom, or small loon. The 

 red throat fades when the breeding- season is over, 

 and entirely disappears in winter. The nest is made 

 close to the water, and contains two greenish eggs, 

 marked with brown spots. During the time of incu- 

 bation, the male deserts the female, and joins his 

 bachelor friends, but when the young are hatched, he 

 returns to his forsaken spouse, and behaves like a 

 respectable husband and father. Then he may be 

 seen carrying his young ones on his back, and swim- 

 ming about and diving with them in that position. 



The great northern diver (G. glacialis). By no 

 means common here, although it breeds on the small 

 islands off the west coast of Finmark. It is much 

 more common, during the breeding-season, in Iceland, 

 Greenland, and Spitzbergen. The peasants in Fin- 

 mark make caps of the breast of this bird, and believe 

 that it was first made without legs, but that nature, 

 becoming sensible of her mistake, got into a pet, and 



