BLACKTHROATED-DIVER 449 



evidence is even stronger in the case of the redthroated-diver, which 

 has a similar conformation of the feet. Although able to take to the 

 wing without much difficulty from the water, the great northern-diver 

 is apparently unable to rise from land. When in full flight it presents 

 a remarkable appearance, the long, thick neck gives it something of the 

 look of a goose, and the small rapidly beating wings, set far back, look 

 unequal to their task. It will travel for short distances only just above 

 the waves, but in rough weather, or when making long flights, may be 

 seen at a considerable height, and in spring often utters its hoarse 

 screams at such times. 



When wounded it will at times lunge fiercely with its powerful 

 beak at the hand of any one who incautiously approaches it. Booth 

 relates how one struck savagely at a crippled heron which fell on to it, 

 and W. H. Hudson states that a gull was killed by a thrust from a 

 bird watched by him. In September the breeding-places are aban- 

 doned and the little family parties betake themselves to the sea, and 

 about the same time they begin to arrive at the Shetlands, though 

 many more farther south about Christmas-time, and do not return 

 till the following April or May. 



BLACKTHROATED-DIVER 



In many respects this species is a smaller edition of the great 

 northern-diver, but its distribution is very different, and it breeds 

 regularly with us, though not in any great numbers. It is decidedly 

 less numerous than the redthroated-diver in Scotland, and is 

 generally to be found breeding on one of a group of low grassy or 

 sandy islets on the larger lochs in the wild and mountainous district 

 between the north of Sutherland and Argyllshire. Graf Zedlitz has 

 recently published some interesting observations on this species as 

 observed by him in Norway and Sweden in the Journal/. Ornithologie, 

 1913, pp. 179-188. He remarks that in South Sweden the black- 



