196 
COLYMBIDiE. 
Zetland seas.”* With respect to the number said to have 
been observed in Belfast Bay, the following is a kind of cor- 
roborative note : — the season is the singular feature in what has 
just been stated, but where dates are not remembered even the 
month may be incorrect. According to a memorandum by the 
late Mr. John Montgomery, great northern divers were (to use 
his own words) “very plenty at Dundrum, county Down, in 
the beginning of January 1822 : I could not have seen less 
than from fifty to sixty in one day between the outer and inner 
bays. We killed six, which was thought a wonder, as a person 
who shoots a good deal here said he never saw them shot before, 
but that the fishermen sometimes found them drowned in the 
nets, in which they got entangled when diving for their prey. 
They are difficult to kill on account of their diving at the flash 
of the pan, and even when struck they carry away a great deal of 
shot. Though many shots were fired at them and other birds 
during the day, they never attempted to take wing, but always 
dived. They swam under water very fast, and always gained on 
the boat whether with or against the tide.” In a note of 
January 1823, the same gentleman remarked that great northern 
divers are very plentiful at Dundrum every winter. Two females 
which he weighed were 9 and 11 lbs. One shot near Cushen- 
dall in November 1812, was reported as weighing 16 lbs. Notes 
have been supplied to me of a young male killed in Dublin 
Bay, weighing 10 lbs. 2 oz., and an adult obtained at Lambay off 
that coast 26 lbs. ! Both this species and the red-throated diver 
vary remarkably in size. 
With respect to Cork harbour, it was stated in March 1850, 
“ The northern divers appeared as usual this winter. In pur- 
suing them from a boat, when they are once frightened or fired at, 
it is impossible to get within shot again, they swim so quickly 
under water. A boat has no chance of coming near.”t 
In Larne Lough, where these birds are little molested, they 
* £ History of British Animals/ p. 133. It is also stated there that the author 
“observed one off the coast of Waterford on the 28th of July, 1816.” 
f Mr. R. Warren, jun. 
