178 ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY. 



Mr. Chapman proceeds : " I do not believe that Divers or 

 Grebes ever go ashore at any time of the year. Some of them 

 1 scuffle ' on their breasts for a few yards to their nests, which 

 are never many feet from the water, not further than. to avoid 

 a bit of flood, and are generally at, or in, it ; but this is just a 

 'Seal'- like progression, all legs and wings going, when the bird 

 is alarmed at the nest ; and the track to and fro is plainly 

 visible. Beyond thus merely landing on some flat lake-shore 

 or low islet, I never in my life saw either Grebe or Diver 

 ashore, and never upright, or otherwise than absolutely hori- 

 zontal. True, in the wafer, when swimming, they do sit upright 

 to flap or ' yowl/ but never on land, because they cannot. 



" They never go ashore to preen or dry themselves, in the 

 warm sun, on sand-banks ; they do all that afloat, and their 

 whole lives are spent afloat, though I have once or twice seen 

 Red-throated Divers alongside the edge of a sandbank but 

 still quite afloat, and, of course, horizontal. They never let 

 the tide ebb away and leave them dry, as Swans, Geese, and 

 Game-Ducks always do, and even Diving-Ducks, as Scaup and 

 Golden-eye, occasionally, but very rarely, do." 



THE TRUE DIVERS. GENUS COLYMBUS. 

 Colymbus, Linn. Syst. Nat. p. 220 (1766). 



Type, probably C. glarialis (Linn.). 



The characters of the genus are those of the Order Colymbi- 

 formes, and of the single Family Colymbidce. 



The Divers are all birds of the Northern Palaeartic and 

 Nearctic Regions, coming a little to the southward in winter. 

 Their general habits have been sketched in Mr. Abel Chap- 

 man's note given above. 



I. THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER. COLYMBUS GLACIAL1S. 



Colymbus glacialls, Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 221 (1766); Macgill. 

 Brit. B. v. p. 283 (1852) ; Dresser, B. Eur. viii. p. 609, 

 pi. 626 (1880); B. O. U. List. Brit. B. p. 201 (1883); 

 Saunders, ed. Yarrell's Brit. B. iv. p. 96 (1884) ; Seebohm, 

 Hist. Brit. B. iii p. 402 (1885); Saunders, Man. Brit. B. 

 p. 693 (1889); Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B. part xxv. (1893). 



