GREAT NORTHERN DIVER. 413 



writer, " was never known to fly, the wings being too short to carry 

 a weight seldom under, but often above, sixteen pounds."* In 

 spite of its weight, however, the bird flies with great speed. I 

 have frequently seen it at the close of day rise from the extremity 

 of sea-lochs at a distance of many miles from the open sea, and 

 after getting fairly on wing, direct its flight seawards with 

 tremendous swiftness, as if impelled by a gale of wind. On these 

 occasions it follows herrings and other fishes into the lochs, which 

 it penetrates to their narrowest recesses until satisfied, after which 

 it seems to realize the danger of remaining there during the night, 

 and takes the safer course of returning to its ' home on the rolling 

 deep.' At various times I have seen Great Northern Divers caught 

 in salmon nets: two very fine specimens, in full breeding dress, were 

 captured in this way at Girvan in the second week of May, 

 1869. In its submarine flights, this bird is not proof against 

 accident from contact with the legitimate inhabitants below. * In 

 November, 1860, some fishermen belonging to Ackergill, while 

 pursuing their ordinary avocations in Sinclair Bay, Caithness, had 

 their attention directed to a large fish struggling on the surface of 

 the water at no great distance from their boat. On rowing towards 

 it they found to their surprise that it was a large sea-devil or 

 angler (Lophius piscatorius) which had closed its capacious jaws on 

 a Great Northern Diver, but had been unable to swallow more 

 than the head and neck. With its widely extended wings the 

 bird was frantically thrashing the water, and effectually resisting 

 the equally frantic efforts of the ' Devil ' to get him under the 

 surface. By the use of a boat-hook, the " whole affair," as one of 

 the fishermen described it, was hauled in triumph over the 

 gunwale, and the bird, which was still alive, at once released. 

 The probability is that the Diver, in descending to the floor of 

 the sea in quest of Crustacea and other marine animals on which 

 it feeds, had accidentally thrust its head into the open jaws of the 

 fish, which, as is well known, conceals itself at the bottom by 

 stirring up the mud and sand with its abdominal fins, and keeps 

 its huge mouth prepared to receive any inquiring fishes that may 

 happen to swim to the spot to find out the cause of the disturbance. 



* The largest and heaviest Great Northern Diver I have seen was killed in 

 Stornoway Bay, island of Lewis, in the spring of 1866. It weighed twelve 

 pounds, and another killed at the same time and place, which I also saw, 

 weighed eleven pounds and a-half. 



