COLYMBUS ARCTICUS, Liinn, 
Black-throated Diver. 
Colymhus arcticus, Linn. Syst. Nat., tom. i. p. 221. 
Mergus gutture nigro, Briss. Ora., tom. vi. p. 115. 
arcticus, Klein, At., p. 142, no. 2. 
macrorJiynchos, Brehm, Handb. der Naturg. aller Vbg. Dentschl., p. 974. 
Balthicus, Hornsch., Brehm, ibid., p. 975? 
megarhynchos, Brehm (Bonap.). 
Cepphus arcticus, Pall. Zoog. Ross.-Asiat., tom. ii. p. 341. 
Eudytes arcticus, 111. Prod. Syst. Mamm. et Av., p. 282. 
The Black-throated Diver is smaller than the previously described species, Colymbus glacialis ; still it is not 
less beautiful in its plumage, and is more interesting as one of the water-birds which breed in this country. 
Unlike its larger relative, which never breeds in our lochs and bays, a few pairs of this species annually resort 
to the inland waters of the northern parts of Scotland for this purpose ; yet I fear it will inevitably be lost 
to us as a nidifier, if the great landed proprietors do not speedily afford it protection and allow its progeny 
to depart in peace to the waters of the great deep, on which it dwells in the season of winter. How much 
will it be to be regretted if such noblemen as the Duke of Sutherland and others, to whose vast domains 
the bird still resorts to breed, do not exercise their authority to prevent its extirpation, which must, ere 
long, be the result of the persecution to which it is at present subjected ! With what Inconsistencv those 
people are acting who establish societies for the introduction and acclimatization of birds from different 
countries, and yet totally neglect the many fine species worthy of pi-eservation at home ! I beg that 
what I have here said may have some influence, and that my remark may be received in the spirit in which 
it is made. 
Until very lately, the Black-throated Diver annually bred on the borders, and on the islands of Loch Awe, 
Loch Assynt, Loch Shin, Loch Craggie, and many others ; and in some of them it still spends the summer 
months, or endeavours so to do. In Orkney, Shetland, and the Hebrides or Western Islands it is more 
or less abundant, but is not known to breed there. The seas surrounding England and Scotland, from 
Mount’s Bay in Cornwall to Cape Wrath in Sutherlandshire, and those which wash the shores of the 
sister kingdom of Ireland are never without examples of the Black-throated Diver, either in its full summer 
dress or the grey garb of winter ; it is in the latter state, however, that it is mostly seen, and in which 
numerous specimens are from time to time sent to the London markets. Mr. Bond, I may mention. 
Informs me that young birds are occasionally taken on the reservoir at Kingsl)ury, near London, and even 
on the Serpentine in Hyde Park; and Mr. Stevens, of Norwich, writes that most of the specimens killed 
in Norfolk are shot on the streams and fenny waters very far inland, as at Colneyand Faversham, more than 
twenty miles from the sea. It does not occur in Iceland, and has not been meet with in Greenland. In 
Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia the bird is still very abundant, and breeds on all the interior waters 
of those countries, as it used formerly to do on our own. It is to these nurseries that we must look for the 
preservation of the bird. 
The same difference occurs in the summer and winter plumages of this species that are seen in the 
Great Northern Diver; but individuals are frequently found carrying their fine barred plumage at the 
period when the greater number are clothed with grey. In this latter state (the true winter livery) 
the bird is known by the name of the Lesser Imber. I have many notes of the occurrence of examples 
in the mature dress at what one might call the opposite season — a circumstance which strengthens the 
opinion I have advanced in my description of the former species, that such birds are probably only two 
or three years old, and have assumed their finery or breeding-plumage for the first time, and at an earlier 
period than those who have reproduced their kind. I am indebted to Mr. Swaysland, of Brighton, for 
a photograph of 'a splendid example in this dress, which was killed on the 11th of December, 1862, at 
the Duke of Norfolk’s, in Sussex, and which is now in his Grace’s collection at Arundel Castle. 
About thirty years ago. Sir William Jardine and Mr. Selby made a journey into Sutherland- and Ross 
shires for the purpose of observing the birds which frequent those counties ; and I think it only fair to give 
their remarks on this species. 
“Its equatorial or winter migration in Europe extends as far as Switzerland, where it is sometimes seen 
upon the larger lakes. It breeds upon the brink of the water, and, like the Northern Diver, lays but two 
eggs. It dives with the same ease and as perseveringly as the other species, and can remain long submerged, 
