474 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



[232.] 1. Colymbus glacialis. (Linn.) Great Northern Diver. 



Genus, Colymbus, Linn. 



Colymbus glacialis. Forst. Phil. Trans. , lxii., p. 420. No. 55. 



Northern Diver. Penn. Arct. Zool., ii., p. 518, No. 439, mature ; and Imber, No. 440, young. 



Colymbus glacialis (Great Northern Diver). Wits., ix., p. 84, pi. 74, f. 3. 



Plongeon Imbrim (Colymbus ylacialis). Temm., ii., p. 910. 



Colymbus glacialis. Sab. Frankl. Journ , p. 703. Richards. Append. Parry's Second Voy., p. 375, No. 34. 



Bonap. Sim., p. 420, No. 368. 

 Eithinnew-Moqua, Cree Indians. Talkyeh, Chipewyans. 

 Kagloolek, Esquimaux. Inland Loon, Hudson's Bay Residents. 



Though this handsome bird is generally described as an inhabitant of the 

 ocean, we seldom observed it either in the Arctic Sea or Hudson's Bay ; but it 

 abounds in all the interior lakes, where it destroys vast quantities of fish. It is 

 rarely seen on land, its limbs being ill fitted for walking, though admirably adapted 

 to its aquatic habits. It can swim with great swiftness and to a very considerable 

 distance under the water ; and when it comes to the surface, it seldom exposes 

 more than the neck. It takes wing with difficulty, flies heavily, though swiftly, 

 and frequently in a circle round those who intrude on its haunts. Its loud and 

 very melancholy cry, like the howling of a wolf, and at times like the distant 

 scream of a man in distress, is said to portend rain. Its flesh is dark, tough, 

 and unpalatable. We caught several of these birds in the fishing-nets, in which 

 they had entangled themselves in the pursuit of fish. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a specimen, killed on Great Bear Lake. 



Colour. — Head, neck, and upper tail coverts, glossed with deep purplish-green, on a 

 black ground. A short transverse bar on the throat, a collar on the middle of the neck, 

 interrupted above and below, and the shoulders white, broadly striped on the shafts with 

 black. Whole upper plumage, wings, sides of the breast, flanks, and under tail coverts, 

 black, all, except the quills and tail, marked with a pair of white spots near the tip of each 

 feather: the spots form rows, and are large and quadrangular on the scapulars and inter- 

 scapulars, round and smaller elsewhere, smallest on the rump. Under plumage and inner 

 wing coverts white, the axillaries striped down their middles with black. Bill and legs 

 black. Irides brown. 



Form. — Bill compressed, strong, tapering; its rictus quite straight; its contour very 

 slightly arched above; lower mandible channelled beneath, appearing deepest in the middle; 

 its gonys sloping upwards to the point ; margins of both mandibles, but particularly of 

 the lower one, inflected. Inner wing coverts very long. Tail, of twenty feathers, much 

 rounded. 



