8 
DOMESTIC HABITS OF RED-THROATED DIVER. 211 
from here I cannot see them. At3.15p.m., however, the parent 
flies out, up the loch, and away, and, walking to the bay, I see 
the chick there alone. All this time—since 10.50 a.m., when I 
arrived—the second chick has been by itself at the far end of 
the loch. 
4.10.—Parent and chick appear in that part of the bay which 
Tam able to see. From the appearance of the former I take 
him to be the larger one—the male—and he must have flown in 
behind the rise, so that I did not see him. He now swims out 
into the loch, and, again, back into the bay, still accompanied by 
the chick. The whole thing appears most strange to me, for 
all this time the other chick remains invisible at his end of the 
loch, and he has not been fed for five and a half hours, as a 
minimum. 
About 5.15 the male and chick come out of the bay, and swim 
up the loch to the other end of it. No second chick, however, 
comes out to join them, although the parent bird passes along 
the shore where it has hitherto almost always been, several 
times, seeming to be looking for it, and at 5.20 the female flies 
in with a sand-eel, and gives it to the other chick—the one she 
fed before—the only one that has been fed since I came at 
10.50 a.m. The male, shortly after, swims into the bay, and is 
soon followed by the female and chick, and I then hear from the 
bay the curious, wild, skirling note which these birds utter when 
together, and not domestically occupied. In some ten minutes 
or so they swim out, and, about 5.45, the male—as I think it is — 
flies away. But no trace of the second chick all this time—it is 
now past 6—and I fear something has happened to it. In order 
to verify this, I, a little later, begin to walk round the loch, and 
as I get to the point round which it and one of the parent birds 
have used constantly to disappear, all of a sudden it runs from 
a yard or two off from the brink (five feet, at least, I should say) 
and takes the water. It ran quickly, with its body craned 
forward at an angle. What the angle was I cannot quite say, 
but certainly it did not go upright, like a Penguin. Thus, then, 
this one chick, as far as I have been able to observe, has not 
been fed between 10.50 a.m. and 7 p.m.—for it is that now, as I 
leave—and, to judge by its not appearing on the water, it has 
been lying the greater part of that time on the bank. Also, 
