BIRDS OF KOLGUEV 



439 



I never in any single instance knew an Arctic skua stoop at a 

 visitor near its nest. On the contrary, an intrusion was met by every 

 wile of allurement. It was the old game of ' hot or cold ; ' until at 

 last, when you stood close to the nest, both the birds were reduced 

 to a state of helplessness. At such a time they behaved exactly alike. 

 Sitting on their tails, either in the water or on the grass, and beating 

 forwards with their wings, they mewed all the time like cats. 



Colymbus adamsi R. R. gray. White-billed Great Northern 

 Diver. 



Morskaia G agar a (R.). 



One of these birds passed within a few feet of where I was standing 

 on the Saxon on June 15, off the western coast, and I saw one flying 

 seaward on June 23. This concludes my record of the species. 



Colymbus arcticus (linn.). Black-throated Diver. 



Gagara polosataya (R.). Pa-du-o-rch dei-nii-nya (S.). 



By an explicable chance we never found the nest of this bird. They 

 nest late, and when we were at the nest places, the reeds were not 

 sufficiently grown. But we saw the bird on the lakes, and it was 

 almost daily in evidence, fishing in the creeks at ebb-tide. I have 

 before referred to a noise it makes like a dog's yelp, and may add 

 that, when undisturbed on the lake, it makes a noise like the croak of a 

 bullfrog. When flying high overhead, the bird frequently utters a cry 

 so like the crow of a cock grouse that we were often momentarily taken 

 in by it. 



C. septentrionalis (linn.). Red-throated Diver. 

 Pa-du-o-reh Pei-o-rcli (S.). 



The red-throated diver outnumbered the last species by five to one. 

 Almost every little lakelet held its pair. July 9. — 'I took by the lake 

 a red-throated diver's egg. The nest was a shallow' depression in a heap 

 of grass and waterweeds in water ten inches deep, with two well-defined 

 tracks running up to it. Down one of these the sitting bird dived, like 



