DOMESTIC HABITS OF RED-THROATED DIVER. 91 
who, on her part, swims to meet them. I now carefully keep 
the two parents distinct, whilst examining them with the glasses, 
and, if size goes for anything at all, it is certainly the male who 
has been, all this time, with the chicks, for he is very consider- 
ably the larger of the two. Also it is the female who, now, 
again, at 6.55 rises from the water and flies away, and shortly 
after this, without being able to say how or where, I notice that 
the male and chicks have again disappeared. 
Before flying off, again, the female had swum to the other 
side of the loch to that on which the three others, now hidden from 
view, are, at the other end of it; and it is noticeable that she 
seems to like to ‘‘ take off” from this point, though she does 
not always do so. 
When the parents joined, or swam near one another, one of 
the chicks would generally accompany each. Once or twice 
both swam to the mother, and then back again to the father, 
but, on the whole, if there was any difference, they appeared to 
look to the father as more especially their conductor. 
At 6.30 the male and chicks appear at the farther end of the 
loch, swimming down it. Evidently they have been resting and 
stationary, in the usual place. 
At 7.38 the female flies down on the water, but she brings 
no fish. The male swims to meet her, and the whole family 
proceed up the loch, to the point. It is now the female who 
rounds if, with the two chicks—the male remaining just off it. 
In a little she reappears, swimming a foot or two out from 
the shore, and then, turning and going in again. I just 
see, or think I see, that boat-like impetus with which the land- 
ing is accomplished. The male then swims down the loch, and, 
having got to the end of it, flies away at 7.49. It is always 
seawards that the birds fly, upon leaving. The largest sheet of 
fresh water here lies only a few dozen yards away from this 
one; yet they never go to it. It is, however, in all probability, 
the one that holds most fish, and indeed is known as such. 
This, and the fact that all the fish brought in have looked lke 
sea-fish—they are, I think, generally, if not always, sand-eels— 
makes me suppose that the .young of the Red-throated Diver 
are fed on sea-fish alone. 
At about 8.45, the male (as I still think it, though not now 
