GREAT NORTHERN DIVER; LOON. 
COLYMBUS TORQUATUS. 
oleae loon is not a singer, but his calls and shoutings 
exhibit so great a variety of vocal qualities that 
we must consider him a member of Nature’s chorus. 
In the summer of 1887, I spent a few weeks on the 
borders of Trout Lake, St. Lawrence County, New York. 
This beautiful little island-dotted lake, some three miles 
long, has been inhabited for years by three or four pairs 
of loons, There they lay their eggs and rear their young, 
and there I found a good opportunity to study them. On 
one occasion a small party of us discovered a nest. When 
we were yet a good way off, the wary sitter slid from 
sight into the water, darted along beneath our boat, and 
was far out into the lake before she came to the surface. 
The nest, simply a little cavity in dry muck, was on 
the ruins of an old musk-rat house, not more than 
eight or ten inches above the water. There were two 
very dark eggs in it,— never more than two are found in 
the nest of the loon,— nearly as large as those of a goose. 
The time of sitting, as I was informed, is four weeks. 
Wilson says of the loons that “they light upon their 
nests;” but a careful observer, who had several times 
seen the female make her way from the water to her 
nest, told me that they shove themselves to it on their 
