AUKS. 69 



The URINATORID^E, or loons, are usually by systeraatists associated more or less in- 

 timately with the grebes, though, it appears, with no good foundation, being, however, 

 on the whole, the most generalized forms of the present superfamily, and therefore 

 nearest related to the ancestral stock from which both grebes and auks have started. 

 Even in coloration the loons are less specialized than the other members of the super- 

 family, since in the latter the young ones at once assume the plumage of the adult 

 birds, while the young loons first have to pass a more or less speckled stage. 



Only a single genus, Urinator, with five distinct species, of which the red-throated 

 diver (U. lumme) is the most common and best-known form, constitutes the family. 

 They inhabit high latitudes and propagate always on fresh water, in the neighborhood 

 of which they deposit their dai'k olive-colored eggs in a rude depression in the ground, 

 but they retire to the sea as soon as the breeding is over. They are solitary birds, and 

 seldom more than one pair occupy a lake. Their voice is loud and harsh ; heard during 

 a dark and stormy night, it sounds like cries of people in danger or distress ; during the 

 daytime their Jca, Jcakara which they repeat when flying, is a fitting song to the ac- 

 companiment of the roaring surf, and has procured for the red-throated species the 

 distinction of being styled by humorous Norsemen "the nightingale of Lofoten." 

 There, as elsewhere, where the divers are at home, they have given rise to many popular 

 tales and superstitions. Thus it is said about the loon {U. imber) that it was first 

 made without legs, but that Nature, becoming sensible of her mistake, got into a pet, 

 and flung a pair of legs after the bird, which fully accounts for their singularly pos- 

 terior situation. Even the old naturalists were full of these fables, and Pontoppidan, 

 the celebrated Norwegian bishop and author of the last century, relates how "the 

 immer is never seen to come ashore, excepting in the week before Christmas, where- 

 fore the fourth Sunday in Advent is called by the people Immer Sunday." He also 

 tells that the bird has two holes under its wings, wherein it deposits its eggs, which it 

 carries about with it, hatching them with as much facility on the water as other birds 

 do on dry land. 



The auk family (ALCID^E) consists of a number of birds of varied appearance, nearly 

 all of which are of a somewhat clumsy build, with rather large heads, the legs placed far 

 back, and only three toes, the hind one being invariably absent. The sexes are 

 colored alike, and the young ones differ only slightly. They have a double molt, 

 and the breeding plumage is usually somewhat different from that worn during the 

 rest of the year, but the change is mainly confined to the face and the anterior parts 

 of the lower surface. 



The family, as a whole, is circuinpolar, although several of the forms have quite a 

 restricted distribution, especially those peculiar to the North Pacific Ocean. It is 

 noteworthy that, at present, only two genera are peculiar to the Atlantic and adjoining 

 parts of the Arctic Ocean, viz. Alca and Alle, while not less than seven genera are con- 

 fined to the Pacific side. Three genera are circumpolar. 



Though closely resembling the black-and-white auks and guillemots proper, as far 

 as coloration is concerned, the little sea-dove (Alle alle), 'rotge,' as it is commonly 

 called by all the sailors visiting its breeding places in the Atlanto-Arctic Ocean, or 

 king-auk, as it is styled by the Norsemen, seem to be of a somewhat different structural 

 type. We shall here only mention the peculiar shape of the bill, which is entirely unique 

 even in this family of birds, which excels in curiously shaped bills of the most different 

 pattern. These can be traced back to a few types, however ; but the bill of the bird in 



