286 GREAT NORTHERN DIVER. 



clown, and in a day or two after are led to the water by their mother. They 

 swim and dive extremely well even at this early stage of their existence, 

 and after being fed by regurgitation for about a fortnight, receive portions of 

 fish, aquatic insects, and small reptiles, until they are able to maintain them- 

 selves. During this period, grey feathers appear among the down of the 

 back and belly, and the black quill-feathers of the wings and tail gradually 

 elongate. They are generally very fat, and so clumsy as to be easily caught 

 on land, if their retreat to the water be cut off. But should you miss your 

 opportunity, and the birds succeed in gaining the liquid element, into which 

 they drop like so many terrapins, you will be astonished to see them as it 

 were run over the water with extreme celerity, leaving behind them a 

 distinct furrow. This power of traversing the surface of the water is 

 possessed not only by the young and old of this species, but by all other 

 kinds of swimmers, including even Gallinules and Coots. When the young 

 are well able to fly, the mother entices them to remove from the pond or 

 lake on which they have been bred, and leads them on wing to the nearest 

 part of the sea, after which she leaves them to shift for themselves. Now 

 and then, after this period, the end of August or beginning of September, I 

 have still seen the young of a brood, two or three in number, continuing 

 together until they were induced to travel southward, when they generally 

 set out singly. 



Having given you a figure of a young bird, taken in October 1819 from a 

 specimen obtained on the Ohio, I will not here trouble you with its descrip- 

 tion, but merely state that the young undergo their first moult in December, 

 when they are seen singularly patched with portions of new plumage 

 beautifully speckled with white, on a bed of almost uniform ash-brown. I 

 was told, while in the State of Maine, that if the young were caught soon 

 after being hatched, and before they had been in the water, they would, if 

 thrown into it, immediately follow a paddled canoe anywhere; but, as I have 

 not myself made the experiment, I cannot speak of this as a fact. 



Although it has been generally asserted that Loons cannot walk or run in 

 an efficient manner, I feel assured that on emergency the case is very 

 different. An instance which occurred to my youngest son, John Wood- 

 house, who accompanied me to Labrador, may here be related. One day, 

 when he was in pursuit of some King Ducks, a Loon chanced to fly 

 immediately over him within shooting-distance of his enormous double- 

 barrelled gun. The moment was propitious, and on firing he was glad to 

 see the bird fall broken-winged on the bare granitic rocks. As if perfectly 

 aware of its danger, it immediately rose erect on its feet, and inclining its 

 body slightly forward, ran on, stumbled, rose again, and getting along in this 

 manner actually reached the water before my son, who is by no means slow 



