410 THE BIRDS OF DEVON. 



easily escape the discharge from a gun, disappearing under 

 water simultaneously with the flash. They are not in- 

 ferior in their diving and swimming powers even to the 

 Cormorants, although they use only their legs and not 

 their wings in swimming, and are consequently most de- 

 structive to "fish, on which they almost exclusively feed, 

 often pursuing them to great depths in the sea. They are 

 all dispersed over the whole Northern hemisphere, are 

 migratory, and breed in high northern latitudes, construct- 

 ing large rude nests of rushes by the waterside, and lay 

 two or three dark olive eggs, sparingly spotted with darker 

 brown. The nestlings, like young Ducks, can swim almost 

 as soon as hatched. The Divers have extremely compressed 

 tarsi, and the broad feet are completely webbed. They 

 principally visit us in autumn and winter, generally keep- 

 ing to our bays and estuaries, seldom venturing inland, 

 although in North America we used to see the Great 

 Northern Diver or " Loon " on every freshwater lake we 

 visited. 



Great Northern Diver. Colymhus glacialis, Linn. 



[Loon, Imbcr (young).] 



A winter visitor, of frequent occurrence, both on the north and south 

 coasts ; and it has also been observed a few times in summer. The speci- 

 mens obtained are usually either immature birds, or adults in winter 

 plumage, but old birds in partial summer plumage are not unfrequent ; 

 examples in full breedijig-plumage are very rare. 



The Great Northern Diver is the largest of the three species of Diver 

 (Cuh/ 1 1 J) i(s) \vhich. vhit our waters in the autumn, and remain off our 

 coasts during the winter, and is also the one which selects the most 

 uortlierly stations for its breeding-quarters, its nest never having been 

 (according to Mr. Dresser) detected anywhere in the United Kingdom. 

 In their breeding-dress the adults are extremely handsome birds, but in this 

 stage of plumage they are rarely obtained in the south, and the adult 

 birds do not so frequently enter our estuaries as the young birds of the 

 year, but keep out on the salt water. We have seen them occasionally off 

 llfracombe, where one day three splendid old birds Hew together along the 

 shore, and we have also seen a fine-plumaged adult close to the little 



