228 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 



dive, that I have shot at them at a distance of twenty 

 yards more than once, and before the shot touched the 

 water they had vanished. 



Far away from its usual haunts on the ocean, a solitary 

 specimen of the Black-throated Diver (Colynibiis arc- 

 ticus) was taken in the neighbourhood in January, 1848. 

 It had alighted on the ice which covered a large piece 

 of water, on which some snow had fallen and had partly 

 thawed, but freezing again quickly in the evening, the 

 poor bird was unwittingly detained a prisoner, and was 

 found in the morning frozen to the ice and much 

 exhausted. It was killed with a stick by the man who 

 found it, and proved to be a female in good plumage. 



In the winter of 1855 another dweller on the deep 

 paid us a visit. This was the Common Guillemot (Urla 

 troile), several of which frequented Thoresby Lake for a 

 week or two in December of that year. They occupied 

 themselves busily with fishing while they remained, and 

 then suddenly took their departure. 



The eggs of the common guillemot vary much in 

 colour and markings, the most common ground colour 

 being green, or dirty white, with streaks, spots, or 

 blotches of dark reddish brown, or in some cases- nearly 

 black. I obtained one at Flamborough Head of a per- 

 fectly pure white, and I have one in my collection with 

 the ground of a uniform warm buff, blotched as usual 

 with brown. 



During the severe frost of January, 1847, a specimen 

 of the Little Auk (Uria alle) came into my hands. It 

 was seen by a labouring man in a ditch on the banks of 

 the Trent at Holme Pierrepoint, and as he thought it a 

 " very strange sort of thing," as he afterwards described 



