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British Birds. 
The Divers .— Order Colymbiformes. 
The external appearance of a Diver is sufficient for its recognition, and the only 
bird that it could possibly be mistaken for would be a Grebe, from which the Divers 
are at once distinguished by their larger size. In certain anatomical characters they 
closely resemble the Grebes, but they have the toes united by a web, and not 
scalloped as in the last-named birds. They are the most expert and powerful of 
divers, but they are almost helpless on land, as their feet appear to have no power 
whatever and lie stretched out behind the birds on each side. The usual upright 
position in which these birds are mounted in Museums is now generally admitted to 
be an impossible one. 
upper parts are dark brown, the feathers margined with greyish ash-colour. 
The present species may probably breed in the Shetlands, but no authentic eggs 
have been taken, though it nests in Iceland, Greenland and in Arctic America. To 
Great Britain it is chiefly known as a winter visitor, when specimens are noticed off 
all our coasts, its remarkable diving powers making it by no means an easy task 
to procure a specimen, as it is able to sink its body low in the water or dive at once, 
sometimes accomplishing a distance of a hundred yards or more before it reappears. 
The nest consists of only a few bits of dead grass or water-plants and is placed 
close to the edge of the water, so that the bird can shuffle down to the latter and 
escape by swimming, on the approach of danger. The eggs exceed three-and-a-half 
inches in length, and are two in number, of a dark olive or chocolate brown colour, 
with black spots and indistinct underlying spots of grey. 
THE GREAT 
NORTHERN DIVER. 
(Colymbus glacialis.) 
This is one of the larger Divers, and has a wing of fourteen 
inches in length. In summer plumage it is distinguished by 
its purplish black head, while the sides of the fore part of the 
neck are purplish-blue or dark greenish-blue. In winter the 
(Colymbus adcimsi.) 
THE 
WHITE-BILLED 
DIVER. 
There is no difference in size between this and the fore- 
going species, but it can be told by its yellowish or whitish 
bill, which is also of a different shape from that of the Great 
Northern Diver, for it is nearly straight from the forehead to 
the tip, whereas in C. glacialis the culminal ridge is bent 
