210 
GREAT NORTHERN DIVER. 
makes its appearance with the various feathered tribes that 
frequent our waters ; and, when the streams are obstructed 
and there I have never been able either to make up with, or cause one to fly 
from the sea. I have pursued this bird in a Newhaven fishing-boat, with four 
sturdy rowers, and, notwithstanding it was kept almost constantly under water, 
by firing as soon as it appeared, the boat could not succeed in making one yard 
upon it. They are sometimes caught in the herriug-nets, and at set lines, when 
diving. 
The loons and guillemots approach very near in their characters, except in lesser 
size, and a particular modification of habit in the one preferring the sea-shores, or 
the reedy banks of inland lakes, for breeding-places, while the others are gregarious, 
and choose the most precipitous cliff's on the sea, and deposit their eggs, without 
the least preparation, on the bare rock. The construction of the feet and tarse at 
once points out in the large birds their great facility of diving, and rapid progi^es- 
sion under water, the proportional expanse of web is much greater, and the 
form of it runs into that of Phalacracorax and Sula ; the legs are placed 
very far back, and the muscles possess very great power ; the tarsus is flattened 
laterally, and thus presents a small surface of resistance, and the whole plumage 
of the bird is close and rigid, presenting a smooth and almost solid resistance in 
passing through the water. The adults require at least the first season to attain 
maturity. Dr Richardson mentions the following method of shooting them 
during the winter ; — “ They arrive in that season when the ice of the lakes con- 
tinues entire, except, pei-haps, a small basin of open water where a rivulet hap- 
pens to flow in, or where the discharge of the lake takes place. When the birds 
are observed to alight in these places, the hunter runs to the margin of the ice, 
they instantly dive, but are obliged, after a time, to come to the surface to breathe, 
when he has an opportunity of shooting them. In this way upwards of twenty 
were killed at Fort Enterprise, in the spring of 1821, in a piece of water only a 
few yards square.” 
The present species is the only one described in Wilson’s volumes as a native 
of America. Bonaparte mentions two others, which are also described in the 
Northern Zoology, — the black- thi’oated diver, Colymhus arcticus, common in 
Arctic America, but rare, and only found during winter, in the Middle States, 
and Colymhus septentrionalis, red-throated diver j all are common also to Europe 
and Great Britain. 
The vast lakes and rivers of America, and her interminable swamps, would 
seem proper nurseries for another family, the grebes; and their recluse, yet ac- 
tive aquatic manners, must either have yet prevented the discovery of more spe- 
cies, or this form is comparatively wanting to that division of the world. Two 
species only are mentioned in Wilson’s History, and Bonaparte adds other two. 
They are as follows, from that gentleman’s Synopsis : — 
Podiceps. 
I. P. cristatus. Lath.— Crested grebe of Wilson’s List; rare in the Middle States, and 
only during winter common in the interior and on the lakes. 
