28f> THE ZOOLOGIST. 



unless previously struck by shot. In winter this bird rarely 

 flies ; the water is his domain, and he adheres faithfully to it, 

 not but what he can use his wings well enough if he chooses. 

 I have seen one pursued by boats for two hours, shot at perhaps 

 twenty times, and then, with heavy beats of his wings striking 

 the water for perhaps ten yards, get up in the air, and go out of 

 the harbour at a rate that would do credit to a Swift. 



The Eed-throated bird is more of a vagrant ; he follows the 

 fish round the coast, and in one day I have seen several hundreds 

 of these birds where a week before only a lew scattered individuals 

 would be met with. If frightened this bird trusts to his wings 

 to escape, and rarely dives, save when you happen to be dead 

 to windward of him in your boat, as he then knows that 

 he must rise to windward, and so would be unpleasantly near. 

 So in Loch Swen, at times when rowing up from the mouth in 

 my punt, in the twilight, I might see two or three dozen Eed- 

 throated Divers living rapidly down the loch towards the open 

 Sound, as they do not care to trust themselves in inland waters 

 during the night. On other days not one of these birds could be 

 seen, but the Northern Divers were constant in their attendance, 

 and every day one might see several pairs of them in different 

 parts of the loch. I like to see these fine birds about, and do 

 not molest them, so beyond quickening up a bit as I passed they 

 paid little attention, occasionally saluting me with their weird 

 long-drawn note, which resounded far and wide over the quiet 

 waters long after the birds themselves were lost to sight. This 

 wild cry, to my ears at least, is one of the strangest sounds 

 proceeding from the vocal organs of birds, and to superstitious 

 minds may well account for sundry tales of Water Kelpies in 

 Scotland. Still, weird and melancholy as is the cry of this large 

 bird, it harmonises not unfitly with the wildness of the scenery, 

 where in front the high rounded summits of the Jura hills look 

 boldly over the broad Atlantic ; while behind, in far distance, 

 the double-crested ridge of lofty Cruachan, clad in its white 

 mantle, towers above the neighbouring hills ; and on all sides, 

 as far as eye can reach, are displayed to view the islands, lochs, 

 and moorlands of the Argyllshire seaboard. 



