RED -THROATED DIVER. 419 



ward, and then there arose a wild and unearthly noise from the 

 birds, which I cannot describe. It is, in fact, a sound which no 

 one can ever forget after once hearing it, especially in these 

 Hebridean solitudes, where it acquires its full emphasis. Next 

 morning, about four o'clock, while bowling along towards the 

 Sound of Benbecula in the face of a rain-cloud such as I wish 

 never to see again, several of the birds passed us overhead at a con- 

 siderable height, uttering the same cries, which might be likened 

 to a person in despair making a last shout for help when no help 

 is near. Once or twice we pulled up and listened to the dis- 

 tressing sounds, but at last, with an impatient lunge of the whip, 

 Allen could stand it no longer. " Let's oot o' this, sir," he said; 

 " I don't like it at all, and 'deed I wonder hoo ye can pit up wi' 

 them brutes, when there are so mony bonnie jukes where we're 

 going to." So when the next Diver rose and wheeled eastwards 

 with the customary wail of anguish, Allen, whose face was now 

 tears all over with the wild blast of rain, seemed more deeply con- 

 vinced than before that the " nasty wretches," as he called them, 

 were the sole cause of it all. 



In the winter season, the Red-throated Diver loses every vestige 

 of the rich cochineal patch on the throat and neck, and is then a 

 less attractive " loon," frequenting sandy bays by the sea shore, 

 and occasionally appearing inland at some distance from the coast. 

 I have seen specimens taken in fresh water ponds within two 

 miles of Glasgow. In the southern counties, where there are no 

 breeding places, single birds are sometimes met with in full nuptial 

 plumage. A beautiful specimen was shot off the pier at Troon, in 

 Ayrshire, in May, 1870, and sent to Mr Eaton, bird stuff er, 

 Kilmarnock, for preservation. On the east coast, the Red- 

 throated Diver is a common species in winter, frequenting friths 

 and estuaries, and feeding on young herrings and sand eels, in 

 pursuit of which, over the sandbanks, it often conies very near 

 the shore. I have on many occasions, during my early experiences, 

 lain in wait for it behind various boulders on the sea shore at 

 Dunbar, in East Lothian, and been rewarded by the acquisition of 

 specimens. These were chiefly young birds of the year, which 

 appear to be much more common than adult birds, especially at 

 the close of the breeding season, when the broods, perhaps through 

 dislike of a northern climate, shift rapidly southwards. 



