Loons 



strong, direct flight small companies of loons may be seen high 

 overhead migrating southward to escape the ice that locks up 

 their food; or a solitary bird, some fine morning in September, 

 may cause us to look up to where a long-drawn, melancholy, 

 uncanny scream seems to rend the very clouds. Nuttall speaks 

 of the "sad and wolfish call which like a dismal echo seems 

 slowly to invade the ear, and rising as it proceeds, dies away in 

 the air. This boding sound to mariners, supposed to be indica- 

 tive of a storm, may be heard sometimes two or three miles 

 when the bird itself is invisible, or reduced almost to a speck in 

 the distance." But the loon has also a soft and rather pleasing 

 cry, to which doubtless Longfellow referred in his " Birds of Pas- 

 sage," when he wrote of 



. . . " The loon that la ughs and flies 

 Down to those reflected skies." 



Not so aquatic as the grebes, perhaps the loons are quite 

 as remarkable divers and swimmers. The cartridge of the 

 modern breech-loader gives no warning of a coming shot, as 

 the old-fashioned flint-lock did ; nevertheless, the loon, which 

 is therefore literally quicker than a flash at diving, disappears 

 nine times out of ten before the shot reaches the spot where 

 the bird had been floating with apparent unconcern only a 

 second before. As its flesh is dark, tough, and unpalatable, the 

 sportsman loses nothing of value except his temper. Sometimes 

 young loons are eaten in camps where better meat is scarce, and 

 are even offered in large city markets where it isn't. 



In spring when the ice has broken up, a pair of loons retire to 

 the shores of some lonely inland lake or river, and here on the 

 ground they build a rude nest in a slight depression near enough 

 to the water to glide off into it without touching their feet to the 

 sand. In June two grayish olive-brown eggs, spotted with um- 

 ber brown, are hatched. The young are frequently seen on land 

 as they go waddling about from pond to pond. After the nesting 

 season the parents separate and undergo a moult which some- 

 times leaves so few feathers on their bodies that they are unable 

 to rise in the air. When on land they are at any time almost 

 helpless and exceedingly awkward, using their wings and bill to 

 assist their clumsy feet. 



15 



