PRELIMINARY CLASSIFIED NOTES 437 



Ireland they have been described as " gathering into small parties previous to 

 their departure " for their summer quarters (cf. Ussher and Warren, op. cit., p. 372). 

 [A. L. T.] 



4. Nest and Eggs. Does not breed in the British Isles. [F. c. R. j.] 



5. Food. Mainly a fish eater. As more than half the year is spent at sea, 

 the greater part of its food consists of marine species. Saxby mentions sand-launce 

 (Ammodytes lancea) and young coal-fish as being favourite prey ; Blake Knox 

 found it feeding on flat fish, herrings, and " cobblers " or father-lashers in winter ; 

 Montagu adds sprats, smelts, atherines, and spotted gobies ; and Chapman specially 

 mentions flounders. One is recorded in the Zoologist (1894, p. 265) as having been 

 choked by a grey gurnard (Trigla gurnardus). St. John noticed that off the Scottish 

 coast it hunted the rocks for sea-slugs, small crabs, etc. ; and Mr. R. Ball records 

 the body of a shore-crab, Carcinus moenas, without the claws, razor shells, Solen 

 siliqua, and a species of Portunus. During the breeding season in Iceland it subsists 

 chiefly on trout and char. The young are fed by both parents on these fish. It 

 is a voracious feeder, and a bird shot in January has been known to throw up 

 thirty-two fish, some big enough for bait. [F. c. R. j.] 



BLACKTHROATED-DIVER [Gdvia drctica (Linnaeus); Coltfmbus 

 drcticus Linnaeus. Sprat-loon ; herring-bar (Kent). French, plongeon d gorge 

 noire ; German, Polar-Seetaucher ; Italian, strolaga mezzana]. 



I. Description. The blackthroated-diver can always be distinguished in 

 its nuptial dress by the black throat longitudinally streaked with white, and in 

 its winter dress by the uniform dark ash-brown colour of the upper parts, relieved 

 only by a few white spots on the wing-coverts. The sexes are alike. (PI. 178.) 

 Length 28 in. [711 mm.]. In the nuptial dress the forehead and fore-part of the 

 crown are of a dark slate-grey, the rest of the crown, the sides of the head, down 

 to the level of the auriculars, and the upper part of the hind-neck are ash-grey ; the 

 throat and malar region and fore-neck down to its middle are glossy black with 

 violet reflections. The sides of the neck, from behind backwards, are white, 

 marked with four longitudinal lines of black ; the lower part of the side-neck are 

 similarly marked, but with more numerous black lines. The back and wings are 

 black with glossy green reflections, and set off on the interscapular regions by 

 large quadrangular white spots, and on the scapulars by still larger spots, which 

 by their close approximation form broad transverse white bars. The wing-coverts 



VOL. IV. 3 K 



