48 GREAT NORTHERN DIVER OR LOON. 
the young are well able to fly, the mother entices them to remove from 
the pond or lake on which they have been bred, and leads them on wing 
to the nearest part of the sea, after which she leaves them to shift for 
themselves. Now and then, after this period, the end of August or be- 
ginning of September, I have still seen the young of a brood, two or 
three in number, continuing together until they were induced to travel 
southward, when they generally set out singly. 
Having given you a figure of a young bird, taken in October 1819 
from a specimen obtained on the Ohio, I will not here trouble you with 
its description, but merely state that the young undergo their first 
moult in December, when they are seen singularly patched with por- 
tions of new plumage beautifully speckled with white, on a bed of al- 
most uniform ash-brown. I was told, while in the State of Maine, 
that if the young were caught soon after being hatched, and before 
they had been in the water, they would, if thrown into it, immediately 
follow a paddled canoe anywhere ; but, as I have not myself made the 
experiment, I cannot speak of this as a fact. 
Although it has been generally asserted that Loons cannot walk 
or run in an efficient manner, I feel assured that on emergency the 
case is very different. An instance which occurred to my youngest 
son, JouN Woopunouse, who accompanied me to Labrador, may here 
be related. One day, when he was in pursuit of some King Ducks, a 
Loon chanced to fly immediately over him within-shooting distance of 
his enormous double-barrelled gun. The moment was propitious, and 
on firing he was glad to see the bird fall broken-winged on the bare 
granitic rocks. As if perfectly aware of its danger, it immediately 
rose erect on its feet, and inclining its body slightly forward, ran ot, 
stumbled, rose again, and getting along in this manner actually reach- 
ed the water before my son, who is by no means slow of foot. The 
space traversed was fully an hundred yards, and the water to an equal 
distance was not more than ankle-deep. The bird and its pursuer ran 
swiftly through the water, and just as both reached a sudden break about 
four feet in depth, the Loon, which had been wounded elsewhere than in 
the wing, expired and floated at the disposal of its enemy, who brought 
it on board the Ripley; when I entered this anecdote in my journal. 
These birds are so very strong and hardy that some of the old ones 
remain in Maine and Massachusetts until all the fresh waters are 
