DOMESTIC HABITS OF RED-THROATED DIVER. 95 
ness. She may then have slept, herself, for some time, on the 
water, before flying off to get a fish for one of the chicks, or 
first, perhaps, to fish, for herself. The male had also gone off 
during this dark, or semi-dark period (the chicks being left 
alone), so that either these birds are wholly nocturnal, or stir 
with the first grey of morning. It can hardly be supposed, 
however, that they are able to catch fish before daylight, nor 
did I see one brought in until 3 a.m. 
T am still puzzled in regard to the second bird that flew 
down upon the loch. I felt sure, at the time, owing both to its 
size and totally different and unassured manner, that it was a 
stranger and not one of the pair. It brought no fish and 
neither went to the chicks nor joined the bird already there, 
which I had felt no doubt was the male. But why the latter, 
under these circumstances, should not have attacked it, I do 
not know, but though the two were out of my sight, for a few. 
moments, in the little bay, | am sure, from general indications 
and especially from the new-comer’s remaining on the loch, 
that there was no unpleasant incident between them. The 
matter is perhaps best explained by its having been the female 
and not the male that first flew in with a fish, for possibly she 
would not attack a strange male, or the male a strange female, 
or, again, I may have been mistaken in supposing the second 
pird to have been a stranger, though rightly accounting him 
a male, so that it was really the pair after all—and this seems 
most probable, especially as the second bird dived up the loch, 
as though going to his accustomed place. 
The swiftness of flight of these Red-throated Divers—as a 
species, of course, | mean—seems very remarkable, considering 
the bulk of their bodies and narrowness of their wings. I had 
thought that they could only be sustained in the air through 
the constant beating of the wings, but, the other day, I noticed 
one cease to beat them, and shoot a considerable way, holding 
them outspread and motionless, nor, so far as I remember, 
did this bird descend all the time they were thus held. No 
doubt, a powerful impulse being first gained, the bird micht, 
by turns and shifts of the body, through which the wings 
caught the air at different angles, sometimes even ascend, for 
a little, without again beating them, but only, I should suppose, 
