DOMESTIC HABITS OF RED-THROATED DIVER. 219 
helped seeing them, were upon this other one pari passu with such 
disappearance; and, further, one of these two has now gone, 
again, since the morning. It appears, then, as if these young 
Divers, before they can fly, and whilst still fluffy, are accustomed 
to get from loch to loch, or at any rate, from small pool to pool, 
with or without the guidance of the parents. It is certain, too, 
from the one I saw do so, that they can run both quickly and 
easily, but how far they may, or are accustomed thus to travel— 
whether, for instance, to the sea—I do not know. It would 
seem, too, from the nest of the pair I watched, being some little 
way from the water, and on the top of a hillock, that the grown 
bird, too, can progress upon the land without any great diffi- 
culty, but what is the fashion of such progression I do not 
know. ; . 
Before leaving, this evening, I saw one of these Divers come 
down upon a rather large loch (as lochs go here, where the 
largest is but a mile long), and, having struck the water, it footed 
it, for a little, towards another one—its mate, doubtless— main- 
taining, with the help of its wings, that upright Penguin-like 
attitude which I have described in the pair watched by me. 
The Red-throated Diver is known here amongst the people as 
the ‘‘ Rain-Goose,” as was told me by an old woman of over 
eighty, who was trudging briskly, though shakily, along the 
road. This is because they are supposed to foretell rain, the cry 
uttered on such occasions being interpreted as ‘‘ warse weet ! 
warse weet!” (‘‘ worse wet! worse wet !’’) 
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