448 THE DIVERS 



curdling scream, like a man in agony or a tortured child, often heard 

 at night at short intervals for nearly an hour, on one occasion by 

 Hantzsch, and also, according to Mr. Blake Knox, uttered when hard 

 pressed and in fear. Besides these, there is also a sound which Saxby 

 compares to the barking of a small dog, and Knox writes as "yap, yap, 

 yap" and which is often heard in flight. 



In Iceland eggs are generally laid early in June, rarely towards 

 the end of May, and occasionally even in July, though these latter may 

 be second layings. Incubation is said by Faber to last for 30 days, 

 and the young are reported to take to the water as soon as they 

 are thoroughly dried Mr. Beebe states that diving, fish-catching and 

 swallowing them head first are almost congenital instincts, but that 

 they improve much by practice in the first week of their lives. 

 Curiously enough, the young birds can move on land more easily and 

 rapidly than their parents, but progression is always performed by a 

 succession of frog-like leaps and not by walking. Probably they are 

 fed from the first on whole and not macerated fish. 1 Faber estimates 

 the fledgling period at 45 days, and there is little doubt that the 

 young are not fully mature till three years old. 



In the water this Diver may frequently be seen to turn over on to 

 its side to preen its breast, and will also raise itself in the water 

 occasionally to an upright position, flapping its wings in the meantime. 

 As to whether it can assume the erect position on land there has been 

 much division of opinion. 2 There is no doubt that the attitude in which 

 many specimens are set up is impossible, for the metatarsals and 

 phalanges cannot be advanced beyond the line of the tarsus without 

 breaking the joint. This, however, does not render the upright posi- 

 tion impossible, but necessitates walking on the tarsus. Sir R Payne- 

 Gallwey states that he has seen northern-divers stranded among the 

 shallows of Tralee Bay, where they had been left by the receding tide. 

 They sat bolt upright, the head and bill pointing upwards. 3 The 



' C. W. Beebe, Auk, 1907, vol. xxiv. No. 1. 2 See R. W. Shufeldt, Ibis, 1898, p. 46. 



Quoted in Ussher's Birds of Ireland, p. 373. 



