206 
COLYMBIM. 
length. The shooter, on reaching home, hung it up by the legs 
near the ceiling of his room, and after it had been there for some 
time, was much startled, amid the silence of the place, by one her- 
ring after another gradually dropping from the throat of the bird 
upon the floor. Two birds killed in Larne Lough, in February, 
some years previously, were said to contain “ sprats;” one of 
them three small fish, and the other six large ones, of which three 
lay close together in its oesophagus. 
On the 13th of April (1847), a number of these birds were 
seen in Dublin Bay, three of which were in adult summer plum- 
age.* So late as the 26th of May (1838), I had once the op- 
portunity of examining a fresh specimen of this diver, purchased 
by Mr. B. Ball in Dublin : the notes made upon it are- — 
in. lin. 
Length (total) 24 6 
— of bill above . 2 8 
to rictus ....... 3 0 
wing from carpus 10 
tarsus ........ 2 8 
outer toe and nail . • * • • .39 
The throat is only a little tinged with chestnut; bill greyish, 
varied with a dusky hue ; irides liver-coloured — those of the living 
specimen already mentioned were set down as approximating 
the arterial blood-red ” more nearly than any other shade in 
Syme ? s ‘ Nomenclature of Colours/ but as being rather of a 
morone (brownish-crimson) hue. 
This species is obtained all round the coast. Mr. J. Y. Stewart, 
in his f Birds, &c., of Donegal/ remarks : — “ The speckled diver 
is very common, but the red-throated diver occurs rarely.” 
This is of general application. The species is noticed by my cor- 
respondents as being “ common” in its immature state, on the 
coasts of Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, and Galway. 
Mr. B. Davis, jun., of Clonmel, possesses a young bird procured 
inland, near Cahir, by a countryman, who knocked it down with a 
walking-stick as it flew low over a field. 
* Mr. Darragh. 
