GREAT NORTHERN DIVER 841 



the head, neck, and body, grebe-like in form ; and the legs set so far 

 back that the bird is almost incapable of progression on land. It is 

 very wonderful that a creature that spends so great a part of its time 

 on and in the water, without leaving it, should yet retain wing-power 

 sufficient to perform long bi-annual migrations. Probably it does 

 not take very extended flights ; when found on inland waters during 

 migration, it often appears incapable of flight, and if in a small 

 stream is easily taken. In its flying powers it appears, with the 

 grebes and auks, to occupy a position midway between the ever- 

 soaring, aerial gannet and the penguins, that are incapable of flight. 

 In their dark rich, variegated upper, and white under, plumage, the 

 divers again resemble the grebes. The glossy black back, thickly 

 strewn with symmetrical white spots, gives the present species a 

 beautiful and somewhat singular appearance. Out at sea it is a 

 silent bird silent and shy and solitary with the cormorant-like 

 habit of making itself invisible by sinking its body beneath the 

 water. In the breeding season it utters cries of a very strange 

 character, powerful and uncanny in their effect on the mind, and 

 compared by different listeners to screams uttered by tortured 

 children, and to shrieks of insane laughter. It is a winter visitor 

 to the British Islands, chiefly to the west coasts of Scotland and 

 England : but as it has occasionally been met with in summer in 

 full nuptial plumage, it is thought by some ornithologists that a few 

 pairs may remain to breed in some of the secluded lakes in the west 

 of Scotland, the Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys, and Shetlands. It 

 has not yet been found breeding anywhere in continental Europe ; 

 its known breeding-grounds are in Iceland, and in America, from 

 Greenland to Alaska. It breeds in secluded lakes and tarns, at no 

 great distance from the sea, and prefers an island to nest on ; but 

 where no island exists the nest is placed on the shore close to the 

 water. Two eggs are laid, varying in ground-colour from olive- 

 brown to russet-brown, spotted somewhat thinly with black. 



The family of divers (Colymbidae) consists of four species, all 

 contained in one genus ; and of the four, three are British. In 

 habits, as well as in structure, they are so closely related that a very 

 brief description of the other two is all that will be necessary. The 

 black-throated diver (Colymbus arcticus) is much smaller than the 

 great northern diver, its length being twenty-six inches. Bill 

 black; irides red; crown and hind head ash-grey; upper parts 

 blackish, spotted and barred with white; throat purplish black, 



