216 THE NATATORES. 



to migration, their wild, weird note is so unnatural, that both the 

 Indians and settlers ascribe to it supernatural powers. 



The Imbrine Diver, L'Imbrim of Buffon, is also fine bird 

 of blackish plumage shaded with white, the belly and a ring 

 round the neck being also white. The head is of a changeable 

 black and green colour. "When it has young, in place of diving 

 under water, as its ordinary habit is when threatened, it boldly 

 attacks its enemies with its beak. Its skin serves the Greenlanders 

 as clothing. It inhabits the Arctic seas of both hemispheres, is 

 abundant about the Hebrides, in Norway, in Sweden, and even 

 on the coast of Scotland. Its appearance on the French coast 

 is very irregular, and only after great storms. 



The Arctic Diver, C. arcticus, 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 some- 

 times 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 BLACK-THROATED DIVER (Colymbus arcticus}. 



ENGLISH SYNONYMS. Black-throated Loon, Black-throated Diver : Mon- 

 tagu, Selby. 



LATIN SYNONYMS. Colymbus arcticus : Linn., Latham, Temminck, Jenyns, 

 Yarrell, Bonaparte. 



FRENCH SYNONYMS. Plongeon Lumme : Temminck. Plongeon Arctique: 

 Cuvier. 



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 



