The Common Loon 



Ay. size 88.9 x 56.2 [3.50 x 2.21] (Bent); index 65.4. Season: May, June, July (ac- 

 cording to latitude). 



General Range. — North America and the American Arctic regions east to 

 Novaya Zemlya; winters south to the Mediterranean. In America breeds from 

 highest Arctic latitudes south to northern California, northern Iowa, northern New 

 York, and northern New England (formerly to Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Massa- 

 chusetts). Winters from the Great Lakes, British Columbia, and southern New 

 England, south to Florida, the Gulf Coast, and Cape San Lucas. 



Distribution in California. — A rare breeder in the northern Sierra Nevada 

 south (at least formerly) to Mt. Lassen and Eagle Lake. Common in winter along 

 the entire coast and occasional on inland bodies of water, even on the Colorado River 

 (Grinnell). 



Authorities. — Newberry (Colymbus glacialis), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., vol. vi., 

 1857, p. no; Henshaw, Rep. Orn. Wheeler Surv., 1879, p. 333 (Eagle Lake, breeding); 

 Willett, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 7, 1912, p. 10 (occurrence in s. Calif.); Bent, U. S. 

 Nat. Mus., Bull. no. 107, 1919, p. 47, pis. (life hist.); Forbush, Massachusetts Dept. 

 Agric, Bull. no. 8, 1922, p. 16 (under-water activities). 



LIFE BEGAN on the ocean. The ancient mother of us all is the 

 ever-pregnant sea. Many of her children have forsaken her, and many 

 have forgotten; but some also have remained true through all the ages. 

 Among the loyal must ever be counted the Loon ; who, though she rears 

 her young in some Arctic lakelet or mountain mere, returns ever and again 

 to the shelter of the ancestral breast. 



It is the fashion now among scientists, and probably a good one, to 

 begin any orderly enumeration of species in any life series with the lowest 

 form. (We have departed from this custom in this work simply because 

 the order of interest runs the other way.) By "lowest" we mean both 

 earliest in point of emergence in time, and simplest in structure. Now al- 

 though there are ten or a dozen other and lower "orders" of bird-life known, 

 as, for example, Struthioniformes, the Ostriches, or Sphenisciformes, the 

 Penguins, it so happens that the lowest orders found in California, or 

 indeed in North America, are those of the Colymbiformes, the Divers, and 

 the Podicipides, the Grebes. 



No man claims wisdom enough to judge between the rival claims of 

 these two primitive and closely related orders. Indeed, some have 

 placed the two groups together, in sheer despair. If we yielded priority 

 to the larger (and unquestionably the handsomer) birds, the Loons, it 

 would be for sentimental rather than structural reasons, and in recogni- 

 tion of that unforgotten loyalty already referred to. 



As we gaze upon some ocean greyhound lying at her moorings, we 

 note with kindling eye the graceful lines of bow and stern, the suggestive 

 inclination of mast and funnel, and we declare her perfect for her chosen 

 element, the sea. We know that a trans-Pacific liner would cut a sorry 



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