COLYMBID.E. 413 



Both Dr. BuUmore and Mr. Eodd speak of the Black-throated Diver as 

 rare off the Cornish coast, and were apparently unaware of any specimens 

 in the adult plumage. However, we are indehted to the liev. J. C. Green, 

 of Modbury, near Ivyhridge, South Devon, for the account of two 

 secured near Falmouth in the middle of September lb90, of which he has 

 kindly sent us the following interesting particulars : — " Last June I was 

 staying with a nephew of mine at Portscatho on the Cornish coast, near 

 Falmouth, and he told me that a grocer in the town had two stuffed 

 Divers, but did not know what they were. I went with him and saw 

 that they were two lovely adult Elack-throated Divers, the one with a 

 perfect black throat, as in the picture in Yarrell, the other with the 

 throat mostly black, but white feathers coming out over the black in 

 many places. The way they were obtained was this : — the man has a boat, 

 and goes out constantly putting down a trammel-net and taking it up in 

 the morning. In the middle of the previous September (1890) he had, 

 on taking up his net one morning, found the bird with the perfect blach 

 throat drowned in it. About throe weeks later, that is, in the early part 

 of October, he found the second bird, and noticing the difference of 

 plumage he supposed it was the female of the other. He had them 

 hot h very well stuffed and cased in Falmouth. The bird-stuffer called his 

 attention to the fact that the second bird did not seem to be losing its 

 feathers as in a moult, but that the white feathers were coming out over 

 the black ones. He did not catch any more during the winter, but early 

 in March he caught another in the same way, and this was in a transition 

 state from the white to the black, as the other had been from the black 

 to the white." 



In Somerset the Black-throated Diver is very rarely seen. Mr. Cecil 

 Smith knew of no examples at the time he wrote his book, but some years 

 after was able to inform Mr. Dresser of an adult slightly changing to 

 winter plumage, which was shot at Willi ton, on Lady Egremont's property, 

 iu December 1S75, on some flooded land ('Birds of Europe,' vol. viii. 

 p. (jU)). On the Dorset coast this Diver is said by Mr. Mansel-Pleydell 

 to appear almost every winter, but generally in the immature plumage. 



The young of the Black-throated Diver are to be readily known 

 from those of the Great Northern Diver by their much smaller size, and 

 from those of the lled-necked Diver by the absence on their backs of the 

 niiiuerous white spots which have given that species one of its names, 

 " the Speckled Diver." 



In its habits, nesting, and the colour of its eggs, this species exactly 

 resembles the Great Northern Diver, and is very common in the summer- 

 time throughout Scandinavia. 



Ked-throated Diver. Cohjmhus sejytentn'onah's, Linn. 



[Herri iig-Bone, Sprat Loon, Loon (N. D.), Sjjcckled Diver, "Wabble 

 (young on the Exe).] 



A winter visitor, arriving about the end of October ; sometimes numc- 



