ORNITHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION IN ICELAND. 415 



was unable to do so. I can assure them that I saw the bird 

 distinctly, and that it looked like nothing else but what it was. 

 How then could any bird of prey — an Eagle, let us say, with the 

 eye of one — be mistaken in the impression given it by something 

 so salient and characteristic, having not only shape and colour, 

 but a catherine-wheel-like gyration long, no doubt, associated 

 in its mind with these, to aid or rather compel recognition ? 

 So, too, a man, I believe, not completely under the dominance 

 of these ideas could not have seen in the defined shape and deep 

 colouring of the head of the sitting bird, with the bright white 

 patch on the throat, anything that specially harmonised with 

 the light-brown rocks and green herbage which made the fore- 

 ground and background of the nest. So dominated, I admit, 

 he might have brought himself to think (being specially trained 

 for it) that the first resembled a white spot on a stone, and the 

 other a black one, or deeper-tinted grass-tuft. 



Eagles and Falcons, however, know nothing of these theories, 

 and their eye, with a life-long experience, must at once tell them 

 what these two patches, with the dagger-like projection, are. I 

 cannot doubt this, since mine told me without any. Still, even 

 these keen-sighted watchers might see without noting, but that 

 would only be because of the bird's sitting immobile on its 

 nest. This habit which, to a certain degree, it possesses, 

 may occasionally be of assistance even to so powerful a species 

 as the Great Northern Diver, a bird as large as a Goose, with 

 a bill like a dagger, or stout stiletto rather, which it must 

 certainly know how to use, and building upon islands in lakes. 

 Otherwise, I believe the sole but sufficient protection on which 

 it is able to rely is its size, strength, and great powers of diving. 

 Having seen a pair of Eed-throated Divers on one of their small 

 breeding lochs, in the presence of a large bird of prey, I can 

 form some idea of how remote would be the chance of either 

 Falcon or Eagle capturing one of these birds upon any wide 

 space of its own element. 



I had now to go back to my tent, to dress, both against cold 

 and rain, for the latter was threatening. The first, alone, how- 

 ever, would have compelled me to endue myself with oilskin 

 coat (or rather gabardine) and trousers, a very thick jersey (made 

 specially for fishermen, I believe), a woollen face-protector and 



