DOMESTIC HABITS OF RHED-THROATED DIVER. 215 
I can only account for the omission by supposing that I meant to 
put it down, on my return to the cottage, but omitted to do so, 
and that my vivid remembrance of the incident made me sup- 
pose that I had. It would seem, then, as though one of the 
chicks had never been healthy and robust, like the other, and 
that it showed this deficiency by persistently sitting on the 
bank, instead of swimming in the loch with one or both of its 
parents. One of these—the male, as I believe—fed it, under 
these conditions, for a considerable time, but, at last, appeared 
to divine that it was doomed, and then neglected it, and helped 
feed the other. The fact of this neglect, or transference of atten- 
tion, at any rate, whilst the chick was stili living, is, I think, esta- 
blished by my entries, and it is an interesting fact, for useless 
attention to any sickly offspring is in nature a waste of affection, 
and the species should gain by the transference of such affection 
to where it would not be so wasted. Thus natural selection 
should tend to discourage parental devotion beyond a certain 
point. But the fact of one of these two chicks having been 
weakly may make my observations of less value as a presentment 
of the ordinary domestic habits of these birds. 
July 31st.—I had been thinking, hitherto, that these young 
Divers stayed on their native loch till able to fly, and then left it 
with their parents, but uow I find that, in some instances, at 
any rate, while still quite young and in the fluff stage—pre- 
sumably, therefore, unable to fly—they can get from one loch to 
another. In my entry of the 24th inst., I note finding two chicks 
on a quite small peaty loch, and a day or two afterwards, whether 
entered or not, I found, as I thought, yet another pair in a loch 
of the same kind, quite near it, which, before, had seemed empty. 
It seems likely, at any rate, that these were the same pair that 
were, at first, in the neighbouring loch, but have since, for some 
reason, migrated from it. 
To-day I came to this last-mentioned loch, late in the after- 
noon, and, about 6, one of the parent birds flew in with a fish, and 
fed one of the chicks, both of them being together on the water. 
I propose now to watch this family for the next two days— 
Monday and Tuesday—which will be all I can do, since I must 
leave on Wednesday morning early. My object will be to see if 
what I observe accords with my observations on the birds I have 
hitherto been watching. 
