DOMESTIC HABITS OF RED-THROATED DIVER. 83 
before uttering his guttural note. I felt sure that this was the 
male,’come to join his wife and family—as there is little doubt 
he would have done had I not been there. I thought he might 
return and do so, if I went away, but in this I was disappointed. 
Three others of these Divers went down upon a much larger 
loch, some way off, whilst I was watching the one with her 
chicks. ‘Two appeared to be mated, and one flew several times 
after one of the others, over the water, as it seemed to me, in 
an amatory manner. There was some appearance, in fact, of 
a “recrudescence ’’—but whether a second brood is ever reared 
by these birds I do not know. 
July 16th.—About midday I got to a loch where I had before 
seen (on the 13th, namely) a family party of Divers—the parents 
and two young ones, before whom one of the former—the mother, 
as I judged—had put down on the water what at first I took to be 
a fish, and afterwards a bunch of weeds. A considerable time 
was now spent in trying to find a good place from which to 
watch the birds, being myself unseen. This was extremely 
difficult, or rather impossible, and as it involved creeping, crawl- 
ing or dragging myself along the ground, almost all round the 
loch, with intervals of lying and waiting, some two and a half 
hours were thus occupied, during the greater part of which time 
all the birds were invisible. At last I again saw three of them, 
one of the parents having, in spite of my very great caution, 
taken alarm and left the loch, though this he might have done 
in the ordinary course of his duties. It was about 2.30 when I, 
at last, found a spot which offered me both a good view of the 
sreater part of the water, and a shelter from the wind, which, 
ceaseless as it is, and, even at this time, tolerably cold, is a 
terrible factor in these treeless wastes. Such protection as I 
now enjoyed was given by the peaty bank of what seemed to 
have been once a continuation of the loch the birds were on. It 
was now a flat oval depression sunk somewhat beneath the level 
of the present water, which seemed to have shrunk away from 
it, so that, seated upon its flat, grassy bed, with my back 
against the low escarpment, my head was not much above the 
level of where the birds floated, and this did not seem to alarm 
them. 
In about ten minutes after settling myself, there was a 
H2 
