GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON. 27 1 
home alive. On examination it proved to be colymhus glacialis 
Linn., the great speckled diver or loon, which is most excellently 
described in Willoughby's Ornithology. 
Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably 
adapted to its mode of Hfe, that in no instance do we see the wisdom 
of God in the creation to more advan- 
tage. The head is sharp and smaller 
than the part of the neck adjoining, in 
order that it may pierce the water ; the 
wings are placed forward and out of 
the centre of gravity for a purpose 
which shall be noticed hereafter ; 
the thighs quite at the podeX, in Great Speckled Diver, or Loon. 
order to facilitate diving , and the legs are flat, and as 
sharp backwards almost as the edge of a knife, that in striking 
they may easily cut the water : while the feet are palmated, and 
broad for swimming, yet so folded up when advanced forward to 
take a fresh stroke, as to be full as narrow as the shank. The 
two exterior toes of the feet are longest ; the nails flat and broad, 
resembling the human, which give strength and increase the 
power of swimming. The foot, when expanded, is not at right 
angles to the leg or body of the bird : but the exterior part in- 
clining towards the head forms an acute angle with the body ; 
the intention being not to give motion in the line of the legs 
themselves, but by the combined impulse of both in an inter- 
mediate line, the line of the body. 
Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swim- 
ming of birds is nothing more than a walking in the water, 
where one foot suceeds the other as on the land ; yet no one, as 
far as I am aware, has remarked that diving fowls, while under 
water, impel and row themselves forward by a motion of their 
wings, as well as by the impulse of their feet : but such is really 
the case, as any person may easily be convinced, who will ob- 
serve ducks when hunted by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I 
know that any one has given a reason why the wings of diving 
fowls are placed so forward : doubtless, not for the purpose of 
promoting their speed in flying, since that position certainly im- 
pedes it ; but probably for the increase of their motion under 
water, by the use of four oars instead of two ; yet were the wings 
and feet nearer together, as in land-birds, they would, when in 
action, rather hinder than assist one another* 
