16 



UNDER- WATER SWIMMING OF LOONS. 



A number of my correspondents have made observations 

 which might sustain the belief that loons do not use their wings 

 under water. Mr. William E. Praeger, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 

 and Mr. Walter B. Johnstone give testimony to sustain this 



Summer. 

 LOON (Gavia immer). 



Winter. 



(From "Game Birds, Wild-Fowl and Shore Birds.") 

 The Loon uses both wings and feet in diving and swimming beneath the surface. 



contention. Mr. Lee S. Crandall of the New York Zoological 

 Park says that he has observed Loons (Great Northern Divers) 

 in a glass tank, and so far as can be seen the wings are not 

 used. Mr. Roy Latham says that he has observed many 

 Loons in fish-traps. He asserts that the wings are not used 

 there but are sometimes slightly lifted and ' held motionless. 

 Dr. Charles H. Townsend of New York City, in the Bulletin 

 of the New York Zoological Society (April, 1908, page 418), 

 asserts that a Loon which was received in September, 1907, at 

 the aquarium, of which he is the director, and which was kept 

 in one of the large salt-water pools, swam under water with 

 wings closely folded and never in use. Professor Lynds Jones, 

 Oberlin, Ohio, notes that in the summer of 1904 he watched a 

 Loon in a big tank at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This bird, 



