THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER 117 
playing its delicate white markings. Sometimes he 
stretches himself wearily, flapping his wings and 
displaying his white breast and the handsome, showy 
markings of his sides. Though wary and aloof, and 
without a trace of animation in his loud, penetrating 
cries, he shows his kinship by the scrupulous care 
with which he preens his handsome feathers — even 
lying on his back in the water to comb out and 
smooth his glossy white breast. 
A hurried cry from overhead may unexpectedly 
reveal the presence of a pair of Loons in another 
element, and it is always fascinating to watch their 
steady, strained, energetic flight above the tops of the 
pines, generally to curve down to some more attractive 
expanse in the Cedar-girt lake. For the water is 
the Loon's natural element. There is an amusing 
deliberateness in his graceful, silent dive. He does 
not make the hurried dip of his smaller cousin, the 
Grebe, but more calmly curves both neck and body, 
disappearing under the surface in a graceful arch. 
Settling down and swimming with only head and neck 
exposed is an evidence of suspicion, and is generally 
followed by a long dive, with a belated reappearance 
in some remote part of the lake. 
When the mother Loon takes her two offsprings 
out for a swim it is a big event in the domestic circle. 
The outing is announced by prolonged and unusual 
repetitions of the laughing call. For half an hour the 
