REPTILES AND BIRDS. 



THE BLACK-THROATED DIVER (Colymbus arcticus). 



Smaller and more slender than the Great Northern Diver, this 

 species retains many of its characteristic habits. It floats deep in 

 the water, and when alarmed, swims at surprising speed, with out- 

 stretched neck and rapid beat of the wings, and little more than its 

 head above the surface. It flies high and in a direct course with 

 great rapidity. Mr. Selby describes an ineffectual pursuit of a pair 

 on Loch Shin, in Sutherlandshire, which was long persevered in. 

 In this case submersion frequently took place, which continued for 

 nearly two minutes at a time, and they generally reappeared at 

 nearly a quarter of a mile distant from the spot at which they went 

 down. In no instance did he ever see them attempt to escape by 

 taking wing. " I may observe," says this acute ornithologist, " that 

 a visible track from the water to the nest was made by the female, 

 whose progress on land is effected by shuffling along upon her belly, 

 propelled from behind by her legs/' When swimming, they are in 

 the constant habit of dipping their bill in the water with a graceful 

 motion of the head and neck. 



The Black-throated Diver has the beak and throat black ; summit 

 of the head ashy grey ; the breast and the sides of the neck white, 

 with black spots ; the back and rump black ; the coverts of the 

 wings with white spots, and all the lower parts pure white. The 

 bird, though rare in England and France, is very common in the 

 north of Europe. It is found on the lakes of Siberia, of Iceland, 

 in Greenland and Hudson's Bay, and sometimes in the Orkney 

 Islands. The women of Lapland make bonnets with its skin dressed 

 without removing the feathers ; but in Norway it is considered an 

 act of impiety to destroy it, as the different cries which it utters are 

 said to prognosticate fine weather or rain. 



The eggs, of which there are two, sometimes three, in the same 

 nest, are of a very elongated oval form, three inches in length, two 

 inches in their greatest girth, and of a brownish olive sprinkled with 

 black or dark-brown spots, and are larger at one end than at the 

 other. 



THE RED-THROATED DIVER (Colymbus septentrionalis). 



The Red-throated Diver is smaller than either of the preceding, 

 the plumage is dense and firm, the wings of moderate length, the tail 

 rounded and firm ; of blackish plumage, with a red mark on the 

 throat, the belly and lower part of the neck being white. The head 

 is of a changeable black and green colour. When it has young, in 



