THE LOON. 303 



'DvTers{Colymbus torquatus). How finely they swim, stretch- 

 ing their large, black feet out behind them, even above the 

 water, sometimes, the wavelets stirring at their sides and in 

 their wake, being a miniature of those formed by a sailing 

 craft. Now they are moving in line, one after the other; 

 and again the line is broken by the sudden diving of one 

 or more; or for a time they all disappear in the same man- 

 ner. Then rising again, one after another, they shake their 

 heads and look about them in every direction, as if keep- 

 ing up the utmost vigilance; or one flaps his wings, and 

 thus rising out of the water, and patting it with his feet as 

 if running on its surface for some distance, drops into it 

 again, cutting the glassy surface into a foam with his snowy 

 breast. If one would study birds without disturbing them, 

 and know how they behave when they are perfectly at home, 

 one must view them thus in the distance, with the aid of a 

 good glass. The first impulse on a sight like this is to board 

 one's boat and row toward the flock for a shot; but that 

 would be about useless in the case of the Loon, for he dives 

 at the flash of the gun ere shot or bullet can reach him. 

 To shoot a Loon is possible, but it is one of the rarest feats 

 in marksmanship. The name — Great Northern Diver — is 

 most appropriate to him. 



The summer haunts of this bird are in the north, 

 where, on lakes and streams, his large, flat body, his 

 long, slender-pointed black bill, his large head and long, 

 thick neck of jet-black, with hues of violet and green 

 and patches streaked with white, his jet-black upper 

 parts elegantly spotted with white, and his snow-white 

 breast — are among the most familiar objects. Of his great 

 expertness in diving and swimming, for which his peculiar 

 structure — especially the posterior position of his great 

 webbed feet and his sharply compressed legs — so well 



