BIEDS OF NOETHEEIT CANADA 395 



8. Yellow-billed Loon — Gavia adamsii (Gray). 



In the spring of 1885, a hunter belonging to Fond du 

 Lac, Lake Athabasca, shot a fine specimen of this beautiful 

 loon, which was forwarded to Mr. John J. Dalgleish, of 

 Edinburgh, Scotland. Although this species was very num- 

 erous on the polar shores of Liverpool and Franklin bays, 

 where it no doubt breeds, yet we never succeeded in finding 

 even one well authenticated set of its eggs, while it is pos- 

 sible that the two Adamsii eggs referred to on page 452 of 

 Vol. II. of the " Water Birds of ISTorth America," by Baird,- 

 Brewer and Eidgway, may have belonged to the great 

 northern diver. An Eskimo of our bird and egg gathering 

 party observed a male Somateria V. nigra struck and killed on 

 the wing by an attacking bird of the species under review. It 

 ~ is entered as " abundant on Great Slave Lake," in Mr Eoss's 

 " List of Birds observed in the Mackenzie Eiver District." 

 There is not a. single skin or egg of this loon in the Domin- 

 ion Museum at Ottawa! 



9. Black-theoated LooiT — Gavia arcticus (Linn.). 



Early in June, 1885, a half-breed hunter brought into 

 Fort Chipewyan, the " headquarters " of the Athabasca Dis- 

 trict, where the writer then resided, the female parent, with 

 a set of eggs which he claimed to have obtained from her 

 nest. The latter, he stated, was a mere depression in the 

 ground on the matgin of a large pond or sheet of water. 

 Both were forwarded to Mr. Dalgleish, who also identified 

 them as Urinatur arcticus^ — the old name of this loon. This 

 species undoubtedly breeds in the Arctic territories of the 

 Dominion, although I have personally known of but one 

 authenticated set of its eggs, procured at Fort Anderson, 

 season 1865, and which is now probably at rest among the 

 grand Oological Collection of the United States National 

 Museum in Washington, D.C. Mr. Eoss secured a set of 

 eggs thereof in Mackenzie Eiver. 



